William Neil

William Neil Biography

There are several artist with this name: 1. an American composer aka William Grosvenor Neil, 2. an American organist. --- 1) Never exhausting his quest for what he calls “dream craft”, William Grosvenor Neil regularly performs with Project Fourth Stream, immersing himself in the energy of improvisation and spontaneous composition. In the 1980’s Neil was appointed as the first composer-in-residence with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the first residency of its kind with a major American opera company. He then went on to produce award winning concerts and events at the New Music Chicago Spring Festival for several years. His has composed music for celebrated musicians including John Bruce Yeh and Chicago Pro Musica, guitarist Michael Lorimer and soprano Barbara Ann Martin. The Rome Prize and the Charles Ives Award are among his honors. His work has been recognized through grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, fellowships from the Fulbright Commission and the American Symphony Orchestra League and awards from ASCAP and BMI. Most recently he served as a 2008 McKnight Visiting Composer with the American Composers Forum for the city of Winona, MN. Neil is the artistic director of TheComposerStudio.Com, LLC that specialises in film and sound design for theatre. He has produced sound design for the In Tandem Theatre Company production of Beast on the Moon and The Glass Menageries in Milwaukee, WI. He has also worked with the actor-director Phil Addis in designing sound for Nosferatu for the Viroqua Community Theatre. Recent film scores include the Community Conservation documentary Conservation of the Yellow Tailed Wooly Monkey. --- 2) William Neil, National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) organist and harpsichordist, has served as organist of Chicago’s Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, a post held by some of the world’s most noted organists, and in 2001 he became organist of Washington’s National Presbyterian Church. He is also organist for the Choral Arts Society of Washington and the Washington Symphonic Brass. He has appeared as soloist with the NSO in performances led by Leonard Slatkin, Mstislav Rostropovich, Alessandro Siciliani, Christopher Hogwood, Iona Brown, and Jose-Luis Garcia, and is featured in recordings on the Philips, Sony, Naxos, Summit, Newport Classic, and MSR Classics labels. A champion of new music, Neil was organist in the world premiere concerts of Adler’s Festive Proclamation, one of 25 fanfares by American composers commissioned by Leonard Slatkin in honor of the Kennedy Center’s 25th season. As soloist with the National Symphony, he has performed Jongen’s Symphonie Concertante, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony, and Copland’s Symphony for Organ and Orchestra. He performed Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Timpani with Chicago’s Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra and premiered Leshnoff’s Cosmic Echoes with NSO Assistant Principal Trumpet Steven Hendrickson. Neil has performed and recorded with many noted brass musicians, including Pierre Thibault, Don Smithers, Mark Gould, Edward Carroll, David Hickman, and David Bilger. His new CD, Poulenc Organ Concerto, with the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra has received national critical acclaim. He is also organist on the Grammy Award-winning Naxos CD of Britten’s War Requiem. He was a featured soloist in the inaugural concerts of the Casavant organ at Robert Jacoby Hall with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, in Barber’s Toccata Festiva, and was an organ soloist with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra Brass Section in a debut concert of the new Dobson Organ in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center. In 2011 Neil was the featured soloist in NSO performances of Camille Saint-Saëns’s Symphony No. 3, “Organ Symphony,” conducted by Christoph Eschenbach, for the inauguration of the new Casavant Organ at the Kennedy Center. An active harpsichordist, William Neil spends much of his time as a continuo player with period and modern instrument ensembles, performing 18th through 21st century music. Highlights include Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos with Eclipse Chamber Orchestra, Mass in B minor with Baltimore Choral Arts Society, and organ recitals in Korea, Washington, and Chicago. He also performs in works of Bach, Handel, Franck, Adler, Ewazen, and Widor, recorded on the great Aeolian-Skinner organ of the National Presbyterian Church on a surround-sound CD. In 2005 Gramophone named the disc one of the year’s best recordings. A graduate of Penn State and Syracuse Universities, William Neil’s teachers include Leonard Raver, Arthur Poister, Will Headlee, and Anthony Newman. He has served on the faculties of George Mason University and Catholic University. Many of his former students now hold prominent positions in the United States and internationally. Recent honors by Penn State University include the School of Music Alumni Award (2009) and the Alumni Fellow Award (2011).