Michael Glenn Williams

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For other persons named Michael Williams, see Michael Williams (disambiguation).
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Michael Glenn Williams is a composer and technologist, born in 1957 in Lancaster, California. He grew up in New York, beginning trumpet and composing at 8 years old. At 12 he was programming DEC PDP 8 minicomputers. He attended CSU Northridge as a dual major in composition and piano performance where he studied with Aurelio de la Vega, Danial Kessner, Frank Campo, and Francoise Regnat. He did graduate studies at the Eastman School of Music as a composition major, where he worked with Samuel Adler, Robert Morris and Rebecca Penneys, and briefly with Joseph Schwantner and David Burge.

Williams has composed a long list of works for solo piano, chamber works, and several works for orchestra including Tarantella for piano and orchestra; Princess Concerto for piano, narrator and orchestra; and The Gates of Hell a series of tone poems based on the Rodin sculptures. Williams also composed for movies including King of the Hill, The Limey, Wonderland and Wicker Park. He also composed and performed piano for the TV series Chicago Hope.

As a technologist, Williams has served as the Vice Chair of the IEEE 802.21 working group, secretary for the IEEE 1275 Open Firmware working group, and member of the IEEE 1754 Open Microprocessor working group. He authored the program SuperScore, one of the first computer editing and printing programs for music, and co-developed the Sonata font, the first music font for professional computer typesetting of music. He authored articles for the IEICE, Music Technology, Electronic Music Educator, and Klavier. He was awarded the title of Leading Scientist while working at Nokia.