Bill Barclay is the former director of music at Shakespeare’s Globe and the current artistic director of both Concert Theatre Works and Music Before 1800, New York City’s oldest early music presenter. His Broadway and West End credits include: Farinelli and the King, Twelfth Night, and Richard III, all starring Mark Rylance. Barclay's original music has been performed live in 197 countries and forty-two US states, before President Obama, for the Olympic Torch, at the United Nations, and three times for the British royal family.

Called a “personal polymath” by the London Times, Barclay regularly works as a director, writer, composer, actor, producer, and conductor. He is the creator and director of several of the most important concert events in the last ten years, including The Chevalier (London Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, Harlem Chamber Players, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Chautauqua, Caramoor, and others); Secret Byrd (St Martin-in-the-Fields and international twenty city tour); Peer Gynt (Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra); and Antony & Cleopatra (Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Virginia Symphony Orchestra). Barclay has received commissions on five occasions from the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

A contributor to The Guardian, Barclay has published works on the music of Shakespeare by both Cambridge and Oxford University Presses, and lectures on Shakespeare and the music of the spheres around the world. He frequently collaborates with early music ensembles and regularly appears in major festivals throughout the world. Barclay has collaborated with soloists such as Yo-Yo Ma and John Williams, and dozens of the world’s most prominent conductors. Recent collaborations include Mozart’s Last Year with the National Symphony Orchestra, Apollo Resurrected with United Strings of Europe and Gandini Juggling, and Beyond Beethoven 9 produced by Carnegie Hall with Marin Alsop and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.

Barclay has created works of concert-theatre in some of the world’s most iconic places: the Hollywood Bowl, Kennedy Center, Southbank Centre, Washington National Cathedral, Shakespeare’s Globe, Hampton Court and Buckingham Palace. Barclay has directed the Silkroad Ensemble on tour, conducted City of London Sinfonia on tour, and composed the historic Hamlet Globe-to-Globe, which toured to every country on earth.