Jan Williams

Jan Williams (born Jan Gardner Williams, July 17, 1939, in Utica, New York) is a percussionist, arts administrator, teacher, conductor, and composer who has championed avant-garde and progressive music in the United States.

He is recognized as an important proponent of percussion performance and its literature.

Williams first studied drums in elementary school in Utica, NY under George Claesgens.

After experience playing snare drum in marching and concert bands, he began to study timpani while in high school.

At Clarkson University (Potsdam, New York), then called Clarkson College, he elected an Electrical Engineering major because his teachers discouraged music as a career.

Within a year, he was out of school, and the following fall he entered the Eastman School of Music to study with William Street, who advised Williams to study the keyboard percussion instruments seriously.

Sometime during that year at Eastman, Williams read a magazine article that praised the work of Paul Price, a percussion teacher at the Manhattan School of Music who was performing new music for percussion ensemble.

In the Fall of 1959, Williams moved to New York City to study with Price at the Manhattan School of Music.

From 1962 to 1964, he was a member of the American Symphony Orchestra under conductor Leopold Stokowski.

He spent five years at the Manhattan School, earning a bachelor's degree (1963) and master's degree (1964) in music performance.

In 1964, Williams was selected as one of the first Creative Associates at the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts at the University at Buffalo, which was founded by Lukas Foss and Music Department Chair, Allen Sapp.

Williams also served as artistic director of the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts from 1974 to 1979 and as its resident conductor from 1976 to 1980.

He remained at UB, where he created the Percussion Ensemble, with fellow Creative Associate percussionist, John Bergamo, continued an active performance career specializing in contemporary music and served as chair of the Music Department from 1981 to 1984.

He co-directed, with Yvar Mikhashoff, the North American New Music Festival from 1983 to 1992.

Williams has been featured as solo percussionist with orchestras in Paris, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen, Detroit, New York City, Buffalo and Los Angeles and appears internationally as percussionist, conductor, and instructor.

Noted composers Lukas Foss, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Morton Feldman, Iannis Xenakis, Frederic Rzewski, Nils Vigeland, Joel Chadabe, Luis de Pablo, Gustavo Matamoros, and Orlando Garcia have written works for him.

His playing and conducting have been captured on numerous commercial and archival recordings.

He retired in 1996 as Professor Emeritus.

Williams was a member of the Percussion Jury for Germany's prestigious ARD International Music Competition in 1997, 2001 and 2014.

In 2014 the Burchfield Penney Art Center celebrated Williams' 75th birthday with a special tribute concert.

Williams conducted colleagues and former students in a performance of Edgard Varèse's iconic percussion composition, Ionisation.

Jan Williams was interviewed in 2014 as part of the Burchfield Penney Art Center's Living Legacy Project.

Williams' wife Diane was a violist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra for 28 years.

He has two daughters, Elizabeth Williams, a Nurse Practitioner and Amy Williams, a composer and pianist.

(Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo)

Williams has appeared professionally as a percussionist and conductor in the United States and internationally.

Williams has recorded for Columbia, Vox/Turnabout, Desto, Lovely Music, Spectrum, Wergo, DGG, Orion, Hat-Art, OO, New World, Deep Listening, EMF Media, Frozen Reeds and Mode Records.

The university at Buffalo Music Library has curated and archived 219 of his annotated scores (link below).