William Garfield Walker
*28 February 1992
Works by William Garfield Walker
Biography
Hailed as a “Modern Day Maestro”, William Garfield Walker is a quickly rising young American conductor and composer based in Vienna, Austria.
Since he began to compose at the age of 8, Walker's original compositions and arrangements have been broadcast on National Public Radio (USA) and Public Broadcasting Stations across the USA. Walker's music has had recent performances at the Wiener Musikverein, Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Ballet Fest Sarajevo, and other places across the United States and Europe.
A multifaceted musician, he is also an active conductor. As a conductor, he currently serves as the Chief Conductor of the Nova Orchester Wien(NOW!)- Vienna’s newest professional orchestra. He also serves as the Artistic Director and Conductor of the “Master Camerata Orchestra”- the professional orchestra of the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra’s International summer music festival, “Premier Orchestral Institute”. Previously he served as Principal Conductor of the Royal College of Music Oratorio Society.
Walker is the Third Prize Winner of the Only Stage International conducting Competition and a recipient of the 2022 Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award. In 2020 Walker was selected by the American Austrian Foundation and members of the Vienna Philharmonic for the prestigious AAF Ansbacher/Farber Conducting Fellowship (formerly known as the Karajan Conducting Fellowship). Other honors include Conducting Fellowships at the Aspen Music Festival and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. In March 2020 a Resolution “Commending the Musical Genius of Mr. William Garfield Walker and congratulating him as an accomplished Orchestral Conductor” was passed by the Mississippi House of Representatives in a unanimous bipartisan vote. He is a 2017 recipient of the Bruno Walter Memorial Conducting Scholarship.
Walker is a graduate of the Royal College of Music, London, the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna, and took additional courses at Harvard.
About the music
Walker's music has been heavily influenced by his daily lived experiences. He writes "I believe that all music is a representation of the universe around us. Whether we have lived a certain experience directly, only imagined it, or perhaps cannot relate at all to it, music has the ability to transport us to new realities. Thus it is my goal to capture all aspects of life in my music. Just as an artist may want to convey something they have seen, experienced or imagined with the use of a paintbrush, I attempt to do that on a sound canvas."