William Vollinger is primarily a composer of vocal music, performed by groups such as the Gregg Smith Singers and New York Vocal Arts Ensemble, whose performance of his "Three Songs About the Resurrection" won first prize at the Geneva International Competition. "The Violinist in the Mall" won the 2005 Friends and Enemies of New Music competition. "Sound Portraits", recorded by Capstone, features soprano Linda Ferreira, including "The Child in the Hole", the true story of a Jewish boy who was hidden for three years during the Holocaust. It was selected for the 2003 Contemporary Music Festival in Kearney, Nebraska, and the 2004 Society of Composers National Conference. Tennessee Technological University presented an entire concert of his music. His works have been performed and broadcast in Europe, United States, and Asia. NPR devoted an hour program to his music. He is published by Lawson-Gould, Laurendale, and Heritage, with four pieces featured as editor's choices in the Pepper Catalogue.
Writing in "Fanfare" (December 2003), Raymond Beegle writes, "I have known his work for years and believe, after much consideration, that there is genius in it. With astonishing depth and clarity, Vollinger brings his subjects to life. One finds a new musical language, not born out of a desire to be new, but a desire to be clear and to tell the truth. With all it's freshness, it is rooted in our past traditions, felicitously circumventing all the chaos, all the attitudinizing, and intellectualizing, and publicizing, that litter the present musical horizon."
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