Composer william gillock biography

I started piano lessons the summer I turned 10 years old, and the first piece of his that I ever played was Aeolian Harp. Instinctively, I perceived something different about this piece from music I had played before. There was fluidity and a sense of spianato. Of course, my musical sensibilities were just beginning to take shape, but even then I felt a sense of completion and inevitability in those final eight measures.

It changed how I wanted to play the piano. There is no doubt in my mind that what I felt has been replayed over and over in the hearts of literally tens of thousands of students and teachers. My experience with his music is the perfect example of what Gillock strived to do with every composition he created. He wanted every piece to inspire the student.

He wrote this in a letter to Dallas teacher Becky Corley in I believe that more students have learned to play well because of exciting literature than for all other reasons combined.

Composer william gillock biography: William L Gillock was an American

If a piece seems worth the effort of learning, the student is more likely to give willingly—even enthusiastically—the time and thought necessary for a beautiful performance. If you have taught his music, it is quite likely that at one time or another, a Gillock piece has inspired one of your students to play beautifully and exceed their own expectations.

How many times have pieces from the three volumes of New Orleans Jazz Styles, Carnival in Rio, Holiday in Spain, his Lyric Preludes, among a multitude of others, made the difference between students stopping lessons or inspiring them to reach for greater musical heights? His father Claude, a dentist in the small town of La Russell, loved music and learned to play several instruments by ear.

His mother Gertrude was a housewife, and raised William and his younger brother, Robert. There were three drugstores, three doctors, a bank, hardware stores, grocery stores, and feed stores. It was at the tail end of an era when small towns served an important function because there were no rail systems connecting one large town to another. At age 3, Gillock began picking out melodies and harmonising at the piano; and at age 6, he began lessons with a teacher from Carthage, another small town 15 miles away.

Like many students who are blessed and cursed with the ability to play by ear, his playing far exceeded his ability to read music.

Composer william gillock biography: Life. Gillock was.

I suppose she did the best she could. Given his musical background, the college could not accept him as a piano major without requiring him to take remedial music courses first. Under her supervision he learned music theory and notation, and eventually he submitted 30 pieces to G. Some of his compositions were solo pieces, and some were ensemble pieces.

He taught music at many workshops. He died in Dallas on September 7, Contents move to sidebar hide.

Composer william gillock biography: William Gillock (), noted

Page Talk. Read Change Change source View history. Gillock was born in La Russell, Missouri and began taking an interest in the piano from the age of three. He later moved again to Dallaswhere he concentrated on composing and adjudicating. Gillock received multiple honours from the National Federation of Music Clubsand his teaching pieces gained widespread popularity beyond the US, especially in Japan and Germany.

He died in Dallas on September 7, Gillock wrote over pieces of pedagogical piano music, brief works with engaging titles and in many different historic and geographic styles. His most productive period as a composer was between and He reluctantly gave up private teaching to devote himself completely to composing, conducting workshops and adjudicating.

After moving to the Dallas area, he was the first and only judge for the first twenty-one years of the Junior Pianists Guild, which involved over fourteen hundred students. Perhaps his greatest honor, though, is the continued and frequent appearances of his pieces on repertoire lists of piano festivals everywhere.