Musical Directing Post Malone, Jennie at Coachella, BLACKPINK, FKA Twigs
William Bowerman is the musical director you have never heard of but have almost certainly experienced. Based in London, he has become one of the most sought-after music directors in the world, working with Post Malone, Jennie's landmark Coachella debut, BLACKPINK, FKA Twigs, The Kid LAROI, Addison Rae, and many more. Together with his wife and creative director Ace Bowerman, he co-founded WFB — a creative production company building some of the most visually and musically ambitious live shows in the industry.
In this conversation with Elmo, William walks through the world of musical direction at the highest level — what the job actually entails, how he approaches building a show for an artist, and the specific creative challenges of translating recorded music into a live experience that feels both faithful and electrifying.
They go deep on the Jennie Coachella experience — the timeline, the creative collaboration, the pressure of staging a set at one of the most watched music events in the world — and what the experience taught William about working at the intersection of music, performance, and spectacle.
"The music director is the invisible architect. My job is to make the artist look like they could do it in their sleep — and to make sure nobody ever notices I exist."
What a musical director actually does — the work that happens before the first rehearsal, during production, and on show night, and why the job requires equal parts musicianship, psychology, and project management.
The specific creative and logistical challenges of building a live show for Post Malone — the scale, the setlist decisions, the band arrangements, and what William learned about serving an artist whose live performance demands are as high as his recorded output.
The full story of Jennie's Coachella debut — from the first planning conversations to the show itself — and what it took to build a set that could hold the attention of the most watched festival audience in the world.
What working with BLACKPINK revealed about the production standard expected in K-pop at the global level, and how that experience shaped William's approach to detail, precision, and the relationship between music and visual performance.
What it is like to work with an artist as creatively demanding and visually innovative as FKA Twigs — the conversations about what the live show should be, and what William learned about trust and artistic vision at the extreme end of creative ambition.
The story of co-founding WFB with his wife Ace Bowerman — what they wanted to build, how they have grown it, and their vision for what the next generation of live music production looks like.
William walks through the complete Jennie Coachella process — from the first conversation to the last soundcheck — and what it felt like to watch months of work come alive in front of the festival crowd.
The inside story of what musical direction for Post Malone actually looks like — the scale of the production, the way the music needed to translate live, and the specific challenges of making a recorded sound feel both massive and intimate.
What FKA Twigs demands from her live show — William's account of working with one of the most artistically ambitious performers in music, and what he learned about the relationship between a musician's identity and their live presence.
The WFB origin story: how William and Ace Bowerman decided to build their own company, what gap they saw in the market, and the specific vision they had for what a music-first production company could look like.
William's philosophy on the invisible art of musical direction — the goal of building a show so well that no one ever thinks about the infrastructure holding it up, and what it takes to serve an artist's vision completely.
A conversation about the future of live music production — the technology, the spectacle, and the question of what audiences actually want from a live show in an era when the recorded version is always available on demand.
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