Biography
Born and raised outside Boston, 22-year-old composer and pianist William Zuckerman started his musical training on electric bass, taking lessons from a teacher in his hometown of Franklin, MA. In 2007, former US Presidential candidate John Kerry wrote a letter to William Zuckerman honoring his musical accomplishments in high school. In the three years since the letter was stamped, William’s music has been performed and reviewed extensively throughout America; Since 2009, William has had his original music performed in Boston, New York City, the Aspen Music Festival, Cincinnati, Ann Arbor, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Louisville, Woodstock, the Tribeca New Music Festival, Philadelphia, Chicago, the Midwest Composer’s Symposium, and the June in Buffalo Festival, among other venues and cities. He has been featured on college radio stations, the blogosphere, and in national press.
A recent award from the New York Art Ensemble in 2009 garnered him critical acclaim for his work, resulting in an international television profile about the composer on New York’s NTDTV station. Also in 2009, William was commissioned to score a documentary motion picture and has recently scored film Miss Iron River for premiere in Ann Arbor’s Lightworks Film Festival. In 2010, William was commissioned by the American Guild of Organists to write music for a concert of solely 20th and 21st century American organ repertoire. He is a member of the band Existential Pilot, a new music ensemble that has toured throughout the Midwest and East Coast. The group has gained attention in several online publications and held a residency at the University of Louisville in March 2011.
In December 2010, William Zuckerman’s hour long Music In Pluralism, a multimedia extravaganza of music, dance, video, and lighting design, was premiered to acclaim, Sequenza21 remarked “Music In Pluralism – was extraordinarily impressive to experience...the music was plain good, uncommonly powerful, and exceptionally mature for such a young composer.” In the summer of 2011, William co-produced the Music In Pluralism studio CD-R with Ann Arbor-based producer and engineer Rishi Daftuar.
Currently residing in Brooklyn, William graduated in May 2011 with a degree in Music Composition from the University of Michigan, where he studied with Bright Sheng, Michael Daugherty, and Evan Chambers. Upcoming projects include an evening length work dedicated to the memory of a lost relative, to be premiered in a concert sponsored by Contemporaneous in April 2012. He has also studied with Juilliard Professor Samuel Adler in Berlin, with Sydney Hodkinson at the Aspen Music Festival, and with Martin Bresnick as a fellow at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.
Recent and Upcoming Performances:
April 22nd, 2011
Miss Iron River, a film score by William Zuckerman, Lightworks Film Festival, Ann Arbor, MI
April 10th, 2011
Recurrence Relics, for tenor saxophone and organ, United Bethlehem Church
of Christ, Ann Arbor, MI 8pm
April 2nd, 2011
Infinity Plus One: The Sky Ending, an excerpt, as performed by Contemporaneous, Colony Cafe, Woodstock, NY 7pm
April 1st, 2011
Infinity Plus One: The Sky Ending, an excerpt, as performed by Contemporaneous, Chapel of the Holy Innocents, Bard College 8pm
March 5th, 2011
Existential Pilot @ Deagan Music, Chicago, IL with music by artists William Zuckerman, Ezra Donner, and Jonathan Lubin
March 2nd-3rd, 2011
Existential Pilot Residency @ The University of Lousiville, Lousiville, Kentucky. Reading of student works on March 2nd as well as a concert at 8pm, March 3rd, of new music.
December 4th, 2010
By the Way: Music In Pluralism @ the Duderstadt Video Studio, Ann Arbor, MI, 8pm. An Evening Drama of Dance, Motion Picture, and Music by William Zuckerman.
December 3rd, 2010
By the Way: Music In Pluralism @ the Duderstadt Video Studio, Ann Arbor, MI, 8pm. An Evening Drama of Dance, Motion Picture, and Music by William Zuckerman
November 28th, 2010
Existential Pilot @ Unitarian Universalist Church, Birmingham, MI with music by artists William Zuckerman, Ezra Donner, and Jonathan Lubin
October 22nd, 2010
Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Featuring Ajax, concerto for saxophone and chamber orchestra
September 17th and 18th, 2010
Juventas New Music Ensemble, MIT Kilian Hall and Boston Conservatory,(Respectively), 8pm, Featuring Subcutaneous Salvation for Two Pianos
June 4th, 2010
June in Buffalo Center for 21st Century Music Featuring Subcutaneous Salvation for two pianos. Stephen Gosling, Eric Huebner, Pianos
May 12th, 2010
First Church In Boston - The Existential Pilot Tour with music by artists William Zuckerman, Ezra Donner, and Jonathan Lubin
May 10th, 2010
Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo, NY - The Existential Pilot Tour with music by artists William Zuckerman, Ezra Donner, and Jonathan Lubin
April 24th, 2010
Kerrytown Concert House of Ann Arbor, MI - The Existential Pilot Tour with music by artists William Zuckerman, Ezra Donner, and Jonathan Lubin
April 23rd, 2010
American Guild of Organists Concert in Ann Arbor, MI featuring a newly commissioned work for the concert by composer William Zuckerman, entitled Recurrence Relics, Or Those Tiny Ecstasies That Suddenly Remind Me of Dinosaurs and Swings
March 3rd, 2010
Ethical Society of Philadelphia, PA - The Existential Pilot Tour with music by artists William Zuckerman, Ezra Donner, and Jonathan Lubin
March 2nd, 2010
WMP Concert Hall of NY, NY - The Existential Pilot Tour with music by artists William Zuckerman, Ezra Donner, and Jonathan Lubin