William R. Williams is himself a graduate of the Junior Symphony, now known as the Santa Rosa Symphony Youth Orchestra. Having lived all of his life in Sonoma County, his early music study included piano with Alice Moratto, viola with Mildred Murphy and orchestra with Eugene Shepherd.

During the early 70's, Mr. Williams majored in music, studying violin and viola with David Schneider and later with Warner Lywen. He also studied composition with Kirk Mechem, David Bates, Wilson Coker and Steven Gilbert. His conducting studies included direction from Dr. Jack Fortner and Guy Taylor. Throughout his career, Mr. Williams has been very active in the music industry as a performer, recording engineer/producer and arranger. He has done numerous recordings for radio, television, film and records. He has also performed in numerous rock, jazz and pop bands on bass and electric violin.  

Mr. Williams has played violin and viola with a number of West Coast orchestra including Fresno, Vallejo, Napa, and Modesto. He has been a violin/violist with the Santa Rosa Symphony since 1974. In 1979 he assumed the baton of Preparatory Orchestra. As well as performing with numerous orchestras throughout the Northern California area, Williams performs often with show orchestras for such notable performers as Natalie Cole, Johnny Mathis, and Smokey Robinson.  Mr. Williams is also quite active in musical theater as he spent ten seasons with SRT as Music Director/Conductor and later served in the same capacity for Woodminster Theater in Oakland.

Along with his regular duties with the Santa Rosa Symphony, Williams volunteers in several capacities. He founded and co-chaired the Sonoma County Conference on Music Education, and developed the Elementary Schools Listening Program for which he produced hundreds of tapes with commentary that were distributed to elementary schools for the benefit of approximately 20,000 students.

Mr. Williams completed graduate work in Organization Development and consults in leadership training, team building and human resource development. He is currently Executive Director of the Associated Students, Inc. at California State University East Bay, as well as serving on the music faculty at the Santa Rosa Junior College where he teaches audio engineering and recording.