PRESS ROOM

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"I want to spend the rest of my days exploring music and the arts in ways  that bridge communities and that speak inconvenient truths and that  challenge and press us towards being our better selves — as individuals, as communities, as a nation."

GRACE, centered on the history and legacy of African American food traditions [is] the fourth musical created by Williams, who grew up in the District and has pursued an eclectic career...

Williams, the [Let Freedom Ring]  celebration’s musical director for the past 17 years, ...[announced] his STIRRING THE WATERS ACROSS AMERICA tour, a Civil Rights-themed production... The night ended with [a] ...musical tribute featuring... 10-time-Grammy-winner Chaka Khan.

“[GRACE] was inspired when I started looking at food traditions, the way those traditions shape family and community and the way persons who migrated from enslavement in the South made their way north and discovered that their food was an economic commodity. ...I’m fascinated by that history...” 

[Williams has had] an eclectic career of scoring and producing music for television, editing hymnals, programming for diplomatic and cultural institutions, conducting orchestras and choruses... and composing and arranging.

 Electrifying. Awakening. These are words to describe the heart-rending workshop presentation of STIRRING THE WATERS ACROSS AMERICA performed at Studio K at The REACH. To call it anything less would be just plain wrong.

The annual festival, the nation’s leading incubator for new play development, is a longstanding cultural highlight for theatre lovers, artists and producers from across the country.

 Williams has channeled [his] varied passions into a catalogue that spans genres...

A powerful new musical premiered in a staged reading by composer/ playwright Nolan Williams, Jr., September 25 in Washington, DC...

DEVINE HAMER GRAY

The Philadelphia Community Mass is Williams’ baby, a multi-composer work that uses the Bernstein Mass as its general inspiration. It was impressive a few months ago at  Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church. And here, sporting new orchestrations by Williams, ...[it] had even greater impact.  

The focus is on Leonard Bernstein and his "advocacy for social justice,  particularly the way in which he leveraged the platforms that he had in  order to extend opportunities to a diverse group of artists..."  

Philly astronaut Bluford gets his props at the Mann - and a soaring orchestral number in his honor...

Williams has a musical language all his own. It brims with vernacular American optimism.