William Lee Currie (born 1 April 1950) is a British multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter from Huddersfield, England. He is best known as the keyboard and strings player with new wave band Ultravox, who achieved their greatest commercial success in the 1980s.
Currie was born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire and had an interest in music from an early age. As a child he sang a lot and at the age of ten he got a guitar. In 1961 he picked up the violin at school and also sang in a choir. A year later he was in the school orchestra, but had to change instrument to viola to get a place at the Huddersfield School of Music, which he joined in 1965. The education was a preparation to become an orchestral player, learning viola with piano as his second instrument and also studying composition and harmony. During this time he joined a string quartet, played viola in an orchestra and performed with a viola, clarinet and piano trio. At this time Currie was excited to discover composers like Béla Bartók, Arnold Schoenberg, Arthur Honegger and Edgar Varese. By 1967 he became increasingly interested in rock music, excited by the fact that bands created something unique and original together. In 1969 he had qualified for a place at the Royal Academy of Music in London for further education, but decided not to go. Currie was interested in breaking into other areas of music and joined a rock band instead, playing viola. In the early 1970s he was a member of the experimental art group The Ritual Theatre, which included four classically trained musicians and four dancers. With this group Currie performed in Holland, Edinburgh Festival and various other places.
In 1974, Currie left Ritual Theatre to join the glam rock band Tiger Lily on viola and keyboard. In 1976, after several name changes, the band ultimately became Ultravox and recorded three albums, Ultravox!, Ha!-Ha!-Ha! and Systems of Romance, before singer John Foxx left to pursue a solo career in March 1979.

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