Composer

Biography

William Green was born in Christchurch in 1962 and was brought up in Ashburton where he studied piano with Jean MacLachlan. In the 1980s he studied piano with Maurice Till at the University of Canterbury, gaining MusB in piano performance and later, MA in Religious Studies and a Diploma of Teaching. After English teaching in China he worked as a pianist at the New Zealand School of Dance in Wellington, moving in 1994 to Auckland where he works as a pianist and teacher.

Since 1998 he has been associated with UNITEC School of Performing Arts as pianist for dance and acting students, and occasional teacher, composer and music director. From 1996 to 1999 he gave a number of lectures at the University of Auckland’s Continuing Education Department and more recently has taught classes in Music for Dancers at the University’s School of Creative and Performing Arts.

As an improviser he has worked in silent film and with a variety of New Zealand and overseas contemporary dancers, including Cloudgate Theatre (Taiwan). He has performed as a solo recitalist (in New Zealand and Australia) and in that capacity has given performances of piano music by nearly thirty New Zealand composers. In 2006 he began a series of annual recitals of New Zealand piano music decade by decade, starting with the 1940s (1950s in 2007, etc).

‘Self taught’ and a comparative late starter as a composer, his music has been performed by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, various choirs (including Auckland’s Viva Voce), amateur recorder players and in Trinity College music exams. In 2006 his half-hour comic opera “Atishoo” was given eight performances by Auckland’s Opera Factory. His music has been published by SOUNZ (in the New Zealand Flute album, Little Dancings) and by Orpheus Music (www.orpheusmusic.com.au , Australia). He continues to enjoy performing, arranging, choral singing, writing whimsical poems on musical subjects and hunting for rare and unusual piano music.