William Riley, classical guitarist Guitarist from Boston, MA

Award-winning classical guitarist Will Riley is available to perform for weddings, parties, dinners, and other special occasions. Add the perfect touch to your event - beautiful and passionate classical guitar music. Elegant, tasteful, serene - create a mood your guests will remember. Available to perform solo or with a flutist, indoors or out. William Riley has an active schedule as a guitarist and educator. Currently a lecturer and the Director of Classical Guitar studies at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, he is also on the music faculty at New England Conservatory Preparatory School, Longy School of Music of Bard College, Wheaton College, and also Co-Directs the Young Guitarists' Workshop of Greater Boston. As a guitarist, Mr. Riley has won top prizes, been a finalist and semi-finalist in several national and international solo competitions, including the ECU National Guitar Competition 2000, the 10th International Guitar Competition at the Portland, OR Guitar Festival, and the 2001 Guitar Foundation of America International Competition. More recently he has served as a competition judge for both the 2004 Northeast Guitar Festival and the 2007 and 2008 Boston GuitarFest International Competitions. In 2010 he joined the board of directors for the Boston Classical Guitar Society. A frequent performer as both a soloist and chamber musician, William Riley has also recorded and premiered several new works for solo guitar, including "Remembrances of Jerusalem" by Israeli composer Lior Navok, for which he was praised for his "insightful playing" by Classical Net and called a "fine soloist" by American Record Guide. His transcription and recording of Enrique Granados' Spanish Dance No. 12 is featured on that composer's Wikipedia page. In 2005 he appeared as a soloist on the Juilliard School's "Composer's Series," and for the New York Young Musician's Forum, giving the world premiere of Kati Agocs' "Secret Gardens" for solo guitar. Mr. Riley recently arranged and recorded the music for a newly-released book and CD of lullabies and art from the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, with lyric soprano Stephanie Northcutt. Chamber music recitals include appearances with Music at Eden's Edge; performances for the "Noon Concert Series" at the Boston Athenaeum; King's Chapel Noon Series; and a performance on the "First Monday at Jordan Hall" Concert Series. He is also a founding member of the Quadrivium Guitar Quartet, which completed a 40 concert outreach tour in rural Kentucky schools in 2002, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, performing for over 10,000 students. William Riley holds a Bachelor of Music degree cum Laude from The University of Texas at Austin, where he studied with Adam Holzman. He then received a scholarship to study with world-renowned guitar virtuoso Eliot Fisk at the New England Conservatory, where he received his Master of Music degree, with honors.