Event Description
William Jason Raynovich has been active in the field of contemporary music most of his music career. As a performer specializing in the music of experimental composers, he has given numerous lectures and performances on improvisation and the performance practice of indeterminate music at national and international festivals. Hightights of his work with this music include premiering Christian Wolff’s Two Players, co-producing a performance of John Cage’s Musicircus, directing two music festivals of music by Christian Wolff and James Tenney, and most recently performing on the opening concert of the a.p.e.r.i.o.d.i.c’s Cage Festival in Spring of 2012. William has performed at venues, music series, and institutions such as Krannert Center for the Performing Arts (Urbana, IL), Merce Cunningham Dance Company (Urbana, IL), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL), Ellsworth Snyder Concert Series (Chicago, IL), Music from Almost Yesterday (Milwaukee, WI), 12 Nights (Miami, FL), University of Macedonia (Thessaloniki, Greece), Electronic Music Midwest (Romeoville, IL), and International Computer Music Conference (New Orleans, LA).
In addition to his activities as a performer, he actively composes for a wide variety of instruments. He has received awards, commissions, and performances by organizations such as the Chicago Composers Forum, homeroomchicago.org, York Vocal Index (York, England), Access Contemorary Music (Chicago, IL), Electroacoustic Juke Joint (Cleveland, MS), Renaissance Society (Chicago, IL), NACUSAsf (San Francisco, CA), Athens Municipal Small Brass Ensemble (Athens, Greece), and Millenium Music Festival 2000 (Macon, GA). His most recent works include ‘price for acoustic guitar and A Cantata: l(a.
William received his DMA from the University of Illinois at Champain-Urbana in music composition with emphasis in cello performance. His dissertation topics included: Rat, a composition computer program written in C++, a lecture-recital on the indeterminate music of the New York School of composers, and an article on the Witold Lutoslawski’s Grave for cello and string orchestra. He received his Bachelor and Master of Music from Syracuse University. Deeply involved in contemporary music scene in Chicago, he has been active in the promotion and creation of contemporary music for twenty years. He currently is Associate Professor of Music at Chicago State University.