News

Please click on the links below to enjoy the performances of our soloists, performing on April 21, 2016 in Chapin Hall.     Michael Chen ’18 and Stephen Ai ’18, piano Poulenc – Concerto for Two Pianos – Allegro ma non troppo Claire Leyden ’16, soprano J. Strauss – Frühlingsstimmen, op. 410 Scott Daniel ’17, violin Sibelius – Violin Concerto in D Minor – Adagio Nathaniel

Bridge Records has released a CD of music by Zachary Wadsworth, Assistant Professor of Music. The central work on the album, a cantata titled The Far West, is a setting of words by Tim Dlugos, a poet who died of AIDS in 1990 while studying to become a priest. After discovering Dlugos’s poetry in 2006 in a self-published book

The Williams College Department of Music is delighted to announce the results of the Berkshire Symphony Student Soloist Competition for 2016! The panel has selected (left to right): Michael Chen ’18 and Stephen Ai ’18, piano Poulenc – Concerto for Two Pianos – Allegro ma non troppo Claire Leyden ’16, soprano J. Strauss – Frühlingsstimmen, op. 410 Scott Daniel ’17, violin Sibelius – Violin Concerto

The Williams Department of Music remembers Scott Smedinghoff ’09, who passed away last week. As an undergraduate Scott spent countless hours making music with us. Our thoughts are with his family and all those he touched. As we mourn this terrible loss, we hold him in fondness and reflect on an incredible life. He is being remembered

Ephs Out Loud Ephs Out Loud is a student-led initiative, sponsored by the Williams College Department of Music and designed to promote community engagement and collaboration through music. Ephs Out Loud provides opportunities for Williams students to participate in programs including community-based performances and workshops, educational programs at local schools, and partnerships with Williams groups

  Lyell B. Clay Artist in Residence in Vocal Studies/ Director of Choral Activities Brad Wells’ vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth has been again nominated for a 2016 GRAMMY Award. Their sophomore album, Render, is up for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. Mr. Wells said: “We’re supremely honored to be nominated for a second time and we could not have

Professor Ileana Perez Velazquez has been awarded a 2015 commission by the prestigious Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University. The Fromm Music Foundation was founded by the late Paul Fromm in 1952. Since 1972, it has been located at Harvard University where it has operated in partnership with the Harvard University Music Department.  Previous recipients include

Linking Brahms and Whitman On Nov. 15, 2015 the Choral Arts Society of Washington performed a composition by assistant professor of music Zachary Wadsworth at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The piece is an introduction to Brahms’ meditation on mortality, Ein deutsches Requiem, and is based on a

Chapin Hall reopened on Friday, October 23, 2015 in grand style. To a packed house the Berkshire Symphony rechristened the 103 year old venue after months of renovation. Much has changed in the concert hall: beautifully painted and trimmed ceiling and walls, improved seating, ramped access to the stage, an attractive and functional stage extension, much improved lighting,

Prof. Ileana Perez Velazquez will have her latest work, an original score for violin, cello, percussion, voices, and electronics, featured in “Blood Wedding,” presented by the department of theatre at Williams. “Blood Wedding” was written by Federico García Lorca and is directed by Kameron Steele. The play runs October 15 – 17 in the CenterStage. For more

On May 9, 2015 the Williams Percussion Ensemble presented John Luther Adams’s expansive and elemental Strange and Sacred Noise, a 70-minute immersion in the deep resonance of drums, gongs, marimbas, and sirens, performed around the reflecting pool of the newly redesigned central campus of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown. Click here to read a review

The end of the academic year brings serious contemplation of weighty matters: Should I go to grad school? Will that job come through? Will I make it? One project has captured student imaginations and has released some pressure—and a plague of puns! As part of the campus-wide “Ephs on Parade,” music majors have used photos of the department

Prof. Sheppard’s “Puccini and the Music Boxes” has been published in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association. The publisher selected the article to be available “free access” worldwide until February 2016. Click for free access

Starting Fall 2015, no student enrolled in music lesson courses at Williams will be charged anything beyond the College’s comprehensive fee. All students taking these courses will now receive a full subsidy so that their fee will be $0. With this major policy change Williams College has made even clearer its commitment to music education.  

Faculty host Ronald Feldman and a panel of judges have announced the winners of the 2015 Berkshire Symphony Student Soloist Competition. In a three hour program open to the public, listeners were spoiled for choice as 15 of some of Williams finest student musicians took to the stage to present solo works to a grateful audience. Harpist

Jason Howland, a music major of the Class of 1993, has been honored with a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album. Beautiful: The Carole King Musical  Jessie Mueller, principal soloist; Jason Howland, Steve Sidwell & Billy Jay Stein, producers (Carole King, composer & lyricist) (Original Broadway Cast) Jason Howland is a musical theatre composer, playwright,