Bill has an interesting and varied background. A native of Albuquerque, New Mexico, he began viola studies in the public school system and went on to play in the nationally-recognized Albuquerque Youth Symphony program throughout junior high and high school. In college, while performing professionally with regional orchestras, majoring in chemistry and minoring in music under violists Joel Rosenberg and Herb Levinson, he received his first conducting and administrative experience as choir director and head of his church's music program. Sandia National Laboratories sponsored this first degree at the University of New Mexico with a full scholarship.
In pursuit of a graduate management degree, Bill was awarded the Carnation Company Fellowship to take the Master of Business Administration program in finance at Columbia University in New York City. While there, he was usually found with viola in hand, studying with the resident Composers' String Quartet or playing in various orchestras. Finally succumbing to his first love midway through the MBA program, he resolved to pursue a career in performance upon graduation. Returning to Albuquerque with diploma in hand to concentrate on viola, he was fortunate to study under such notables as Leonard Felberg, retired Metropolitan Opera principal violist John A. DiJanni, concert artist Toby Appel, and former Cleveland Quartet member Atar Arad.
It soon became apparent to Bill that aspiring professional musicians in Albuquerque were not being accorded the opportunities necessary to develop their artistry completely. Specifically, there were few chances to play the standard chamber orchestra repertoire, still fewer for solo performance with orchestra, and none for composers to hear their works performed. He founded, conducted, and managed the Duke City Chamber Orchestra, a pre-professional training ensemble, to provide gifted but inexperienced players and composers exceptional performance opportunities.
After three successful seasons with Duke City, completion of the Bachelor of Music degree with distinction and prompting by respected mentor and Albuquerque Youth Symphony progam music director Dale Kempter, Bill moved to Madison to begin orchestral conducting studies at the University of Wisconsin. His appointment as graduate assistant conductor coincided with receipt of the prestigious Advanced Opportunity Fellowship. Although his teacher, David E. Becker, was a wonderfully thorough but relentless taskmaster, playing in regional orchestras and performing in chamber recitals was squeezed into his extremely busy conducting schedule. He was selected to receive the Deans' Outstanding Achievement Award by the Graduate Studies Department and the Richard C. Church Memorial Award, given to the outstanding student conductor by the School of Music, at the conclusion of his graduate study.
Frustrated with the lifeless and uninteresting direction orchestras were taking at the time, Bill returned home to create The New Southwest Orchestra, a professional summer residency orchestra dedicated to American composers and their music that performed throughout northern New Mexico. He was artistic director and conductor of TNSO while conducting all musicals presented at the Albuquerque Little Theatre during that time. Then, longing for the intense musical stimulation of the East Coast, he returned to the New York City area and was a member of the adjunct faculty at Essex County College in Newark, violist with the Louisiana Philharmonic and was Executive and Artistic Director of The Orchestra at William Paterson University for almost seven years.
Bill has played with viola sections in many orchestras in New York, New Jersey, Louisiana, Texas, Colorado, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Mexico, and soloed with orchestra in Berlioz's Harold in Italy and Mozart's Symphonie Concertante. His teaching experience includes university adjunct positions, private instruction, preparatory school music and science classes, and acting as lead clinician for middle and high school orchestra workshops and festivals. He was mentor for both gifted and at-risk programs in the Albuquerque Public Schools and has written reviews of new classical music for Albuquerque's rock/jazz monthly trade magazine MicLine.
Currently, Houston freelances as violist and conductor, teaches privately and coaches chamber groups, teaches a course entitled "A New Approach to Listening," and is a consultant for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center Arts Education Department's Jazz For Teens and StarLedger Scholarship programs. Houston spends his few free moments working on motorcycles, riding his Ducati ST2 and working out at his favorite gym.
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