David Williams

QUARTET FOR SAXOPHONES, "ENON VALLEY" My Quartet for Saxophones was commissioned by the Traverser Quartet with additional funding by my brother Dick Williams. Since my brother was in on the commission I included something familiar to us: reminiscences of our old hometown, Enon Valley, Pennsylvania. "Hometown" is a bit of a misnomer -- our mail was delivered from Enon Valley (population about 300), but our family never really went there since we lived ten kilometers outside of town. These pieces are not tone poems, but suggest certain memories. "Groove Apple," musically a sonata form, is about baseball, practicing by pitching at a missing slat in a corncrib. "Minuet and Blues," suggested by my son Josh's love of blues rock, counterpoises a Haydnesque dance with a trio's music hung on a Stevie Ray Vaughan bass motif, albeit corrupted into seven. "Lament" uses a Civil War fiddle tune at the center, surrounded by music spun from a ground bass. "Salt, Crank" is an homage to making homemade ice cream -- the art of balancing the addition of salt to the ice mixture while turning the crank as fast as possible. My music -- which is fat-free, unlike any good homemade ice cream -- is a rondo with metrical hijinks.

David Williams was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania in 1953. He studied composition with Thomas Canning and John Beall at West Virginia University. Originally trained as a wind band conductor, he turned to composing in graduate school. He has composed about 70 works in a large variety of genres. He has twice won the West Virginia Division of Culture and History's Fellowship for Music Composition (1992, 1999). His recent premier performances include Fantasy on "Covenanters" for woodwind quintet (January on WV Public Radio), Trio for Horn, Trombone, and Piano May in Parkersburg), Quintet for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Viola, and Cello (October 1 in Charleston), and Quartet for Saxophones, "Enon Valley" (October 5 in Fairmont). The West Virginia Symphony Orchestra will play the premier performance of his Lost Tales/Imaginary Dances, commissioned for the opening of the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences, on November 14-15, 2003.

He teaches composition at the University of Charleston, recorder and band instruments at Montaineer Montessori School, and serves as the classical music critic for the Charleston Gazette. He lives in Dunbar, WV with his wife Joyce and children, Joshua and Katherine.