William Friedson is a composer who resides in Bellingham, WA. His reputation in Classical music is mostly in the field of Vocal Music as he is a Musical Director and singer himself. He is also an accomplished Jazz/Classical pianist.

He began composition studies at the age of 17 with Jean Coulthard (Canada). That year he won first place, High School division, in the Okanagan Composers Festival of Composers (1980). In the following years he studied throughout the USA; finishing with a Masters Degree from Manhattan School Of Music.  There, he conducted several of his pieces, including Elegy for Jane, (text by Roethke) which was premiered by Soprano Elizabeth Vogel. During this time he was commissioned by Yevgeny Yevtushenko to write music to accompany an entire Evening of Russian Poetry at NYU in 1993. Yevtushenko has used this music in interviews on National Public Radio.

He has since then had other vocal commissions, most notably from the Canadian playwright Kico Gonzalez-Risso. Some of these were sung by Soprano Julia Bonnett, at the Festival Vancouver, (Vancouver Song for Dbl. Choir and Soloist and Arabica for pn. and tenor). He also wrote the theme music for Risso's Ghosts in Love, a Radio Cabaret, premiered at the Vancouver East Cultural Center in 2005. He has just finished his Second Piano Sonata. (The third movement --"Kai Tai" can be downloaded for purchase--top of page)


Mr. Friedson's  credits Berg, Messiaen, and Ellington as his most important influences.