The first track of the soundtrack for "Hunger Ward" by Spin Film, nominated for an Academy Award (Oscar) for best documentary short.
The official film soundtrack will be out on April 11, 2021. Click here to preorder or listen on Spotify: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/williamcampbell/hunger-ward-original-film-soundtrack

Into The Hunger Ward

Track 7 to the soundtrack for "Hunger Ward" by Spin Film, nominated for an Academy Award (Oscar) for best documentary short.
The official film soundtrack will be out on April 11, 2021. Click here to pre-order or listen: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/williamcampbell/hunger-ward-original-film-soundtrack

Mekkia's Reflections & Merry Go Round

The title track from William Campbell's upcoming album, All In Due Time. 
"All In Due Time" is a solo piano work for left hand alone. 
"It came about because of my personal and artistic need to play piano and create, but my inability to play with my right arm due to surgery. I had a significant injury to my elbow and had to have surgery on my right arm.  Of course being a creative artist and a piano player, this really affected me emotionally. I got depressed and upset, and I wasn't sure that I was going to ever be able to play piano again, or do sit ups, or play tennis, or ride a bike or whatever else I wanted to do. I didn’t know how the healing process was going to go. I was scared. So I created this piece of music that expressed my feelings and allowed me to move through those emotions, moving along the entire piano keyboard with just the left hand alone."

All In Due Time

Into the Garden

Wonder With Clouds

Green Fire Variations, for cello and piano, is music about the energy within wild things. 

Performance from September 16, 2013. 
Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir, cello, and Ben Loeb, piano.

The title uses words borrowed from writer and conservationist Aldo Leopold: "We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes—something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view." (Sand County Almanac)

Musically the composition is based on one short motive and scale reminiscent of a favorite composer, Béla Bartók. I used it in many different and varied guises: in dark, dramatic statements; interwoven playfulness; lyrical dance sections; solo introspection; and call and response between parts. The cello part is quite challenging in a number of areas, and while the piano part is mostly in a helpful role, the two create a balance. There’s an intentional sinuous mystery to the underlying ideas of the music, and I hope it conveys at least in part an aspect of the life force of the wild.

Green Fire Variations, for cello and piano

from the album "Together We Rise"
© 2023 Wiliam Campbell Music

11 Together We Rise (Reprise)

7-10. Sanctuary Suite
   Approaching the Summit
   Sacred Ground
   Sanctuary
   Lessons from the Sparrow

from the album "Together We Rise"
© 2023 Wiliam Campbell Music

07 - 10 Sanctuary Suite

06 Drive All Night

05 Web of Life

02 Emerging

Performed by Naha Greenholtz and Aaron Williams

Mosaics - IV. Synchronicities

Performed by the St. Ambrose University Chamber Singers under the direction of Dr. Nathan Windt

Venite, exultemus Domino jubilemus Deo salutari nostro. 
Praeveniamus face jus in confessione
et in psalmis jubilemus illi.
Venite, adoremus et procidamus ante eum 
et ploremus coram Domino qui fecit nos.

Come let us praise the Lord with joy 
let us joyfully sing to God our salvation. 
Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and make a joyful noise to him with psalms. 
Come let us adore and fall down
and weep before the Lord that made us.

Venite Exultemus was commissioned by St. Ambrose University in 2023 in honor of the 10th anniversary of the Papacy of Pope Francis, and written especially for the Chamber Singers under the direction of Dr. Nathan Windt. I chose this particular Latin version of the text in part because it is the version according to the Ambrosian Rite in Milan, and also because it felt to me that it allowed for a more jubilant, rhythmic setting.

Duration: approximately 3’45”

© 2023 by William Campbell Music, ASCAP.
All Rights Reserved. www.WilliamCampbellMusic.com

Venite Exultemus

"Theft Of A Rose" is a setting of a poem by Carl Herzig, and is a song for soprano and piano, commissioned by Chamber Music Quad Cities. When I first read the poem, I was taken by the rich imagery and the heartbreaking, yet beautifully told story. It conjured up images of coastal Scotland, Oregon and Washington and evoked an almost Gaelic feeling. This was my basis, then, for the musical setting. I marked the tempo and character as a “Slow lilting ballad.” In the Celtic tradition, many types of songs have a lilt to them, a gentle swing to the rhythm that corresponds with a rise and fall in the melody. Additionally, lilting is a form of traditional singing without words. Both of these meanings are present in this setting, along with a piano part that is indebted to the sound of a Celtic harp.

The Theft of a Rose
by Carl Herzig
 
“. . . and that’s why the willows
bow down, drop their leaves,”
he ended, his whispers as shallow
 
as pools of sand dollars
and starfish, the sea wash,
and river-run down from the meadows.
 
He could see from her clothes
that she’d come from a time
when mirrors from both sides were open,
 
but he’d wanted her name and
pursued her, no shame for
the words of the love that he’d spoken.
 
She saw from the eyes of
his leaving, the stars of
his fall, that his moon waned pale yellow.
 
Too late for return, she
could hear from his sighs; he
was lost in embrace with his shadow.
 
From the garden she’d come,
where dark hedges grew
over black sweating stones that had given
 
a name to her fear and
a home to her dreams. Can
the theft of a rose be forgiven?

Music Copyright © 2022 by William Campbell Music.
Text by Carl Herzig, used by permission of the author.

The Theft Of A Rose

Live premiere recording of "Mosaics" for violin and marimba composed by William Campbell, commissioned by the Quad City Symphony Orchestra Association. Performed by Naha Greenholtz and Aaron Williams on Saturday, January 28, 2023 at the Butterworth Center, Rock Island, Illinois as part of the "Up Close" chamber music series of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra.

A Mosaic is art that is made up of many smaller pieces, where the sum is greater than the individual parts. This five-movement work is a mosaic of different musical themes, patterns, rhythms, and textures, and often the interest is more about the interplay between the instruments than their distinct lines. Each movement has a central motive (small musical idea) which may or may not change, and is complimented by a different, yet related, motive in the other instrument. The listener will be aware of similarities between the motives of each movement, which I intended to provide continuity by design. These individual, interacting, repeated motivic patterns are like the “tessellations” found in many visual mosaics. 
Additionally, there is a narrative aspect to this music, as seen in each movement’s title. While composing the music I was also making several personal realizations, which the music expresses outwardly. It is a narrative that is both specific and universal and seems to repeat (at least for me) with every emergence of creative growth. Like the concept of mosaic literature, each movement conveys a different aspect of the story using similar motivic ideas. Together, the movements create a more complete and full expression than any individual movement could. 
My deepest gratitude goes to Naha and Aaron, for whom this piece was written. I held them both in my mind and heart while composing it and I’m very appreciative to them for bringing this music to the world. Finally, my thanks to the Quad City Symphony Orchestra Association for commissioning this work. 
Duration: 16'00"
© 2023 William Campbell Music. ASCAP. All Rights Reserved. 
www.WilliamCampbellMusic.com

Mosaics - V. Into the Unknown

Mosaics - III. Liminal Passage

Mosaics - II. Signals

Live premiere recording of "Mosaics" for violin and marimba composed by William Campbell, commissioned by the Quad City Symphony Orchestra Association. Performed by Naha Greenholtz and Aaron Williams on Saturday, January 28, 2023 at the Butterworth Center, Rock Island, Illinois as part of the "Up Close" chamber music series of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra Association.

A Mosaic is art that is made up of many smaller pieces, where the sum is greater than the individual parts. This five-movement work is a mosaic of different musical themes, patterns, rhythms, and textures, and often the interest is more about the interplay between the instruments than their distinct lines. Each movement has a central motive (small musical idea) which may or may not change, and is complimented by a different, yet related, motive in the other instrument. The listener will be aware of similarities between the motives of each movement, which I intended to provide continuity by design. These individual, interacting, repeated motivic patterns are like the “tessellations” found in many visual mosaics. 
Additionally, there is a narrative aspect to this music, as seen in each movement’s title. While composing the music I was also making several personal realizations, which the music expresses outwardly. It is a narrative that is both specific and universal and seems to repeat (at least for me) with every emergence of creative growth. Like the concept of mosaic literature, each movement conveys a different aspect of the story using similar motivic ideas. Together, the movements create a more complete and full expression than any individual movement could. 
My deepest gratitude goes to Naha and Aaron, for whom this piece was written. I held them both in my mind and heart while composing it and I’m very appreciative to them for bringing this music to the world. Finally, my thanks to the Quad City Symphony Orchestra Association for commissioning this work. 
Duration: 16'00"
© 2023 William Campbell Music. ASCAP. All Rights Reserved. 
www.WilliamCampbellMusic.com

Mosaics - I. Beyond the Now

Saxophone Concerto, Movement 3, Dancing With The Wind

I Go Among The Trees, for SATB Chorus & Piano

Deep Peace To You, for SATB Chorus & Piano

"Veni, Redemptor (Come, Redeemer)" is a new composition based on a hymn by St. Ambrose of Milan in the 4th Century.  It was written for the St. Ambrose University Chamber Singers conducted by Nathan Windt, and I am very grateful to them.

St. Ambrose's hymn was originally titled, "Intende qui regis Israel," and the words invite Christ's presence into this world through the mystery of the Virgin Mary in explicitly trinitarian language.  It is traditionally sung in the season of Advent.  The music sounds very much like what we would consider to be a chant, but in a style that was specific to Ambrose, and came to be known as Milanese or Ambrosian in style.  This chant style is still practiced in Milan today.   

I folded the original melody and words of St. Ambrose wrote into my music as foundational material, adding harmony parts, and changing the key at a couple points.  The original melody is always present even as other parts are added to it, and my hope is that these parts add to the meaning of the text, and add interest for our contemporary sensibilities.  It is composed for the standard four chorus parts of soprano, alto, tenor, bass.  

The music was commissioned by Richard Geiger and I'm very proud to be asked by him to compose this music.  My concept is to wed the old chant with some new harmonies and melodic ideas.  So to stay true to the prayerful nature of the words, it starts out quite slow and quiet with the women invoking the chant as sung by the men of the choir.  The music gradually builds and reaches its high point during two separate verses about the light of God shining and shimmering.  For this music all the voices are high in their range, particularly the sopranos.  The music fades away and ends with a recasting of the chant and a final Amen sung by all.

Veni, Redemptor – O Come, Redeemer

1
Veni, Redemptor gentium;
Ostende partum virginis;
Miretur omne saeculum.
Talis decet partus Deo.
[ O Come, Redeemer of the earth,
And manifest Thy virgin birth:
Let every age adoring fall;
Such birth befits the God of all. ]
2
Begotten of no human will,
But of the Spirit, You are still
The Word of God in flesh arrayed,
The promised Fruit to man displayed.
3
The virgin's honor still remains
Yet from within her the womb swells.
Virtue's standards shine and shimmer
God within his temple ever dwells.
4
Procedit e thalamo suo,
Pudoris aulo regia,
Geminae gigans substantiae
Alacris ut currat viam.
5
O equal to the Father, Thou!
Gird on Thy fleshly mantle now;
The weakness of our mortal state
With deathless might invigorate.
6
Thy cradle here shall glitter bright,
And darkness breathe a newer light,
Where endless faith shall shine serene,
And twilight never intervene
7
Sit Christe Rex piissime,
tibi Patrique gloria,
cum Spiritu Paraclito,
in sempiterna saecula. Amen.

Veni, Redemptor (Come, Redeemer), for SATB Chorus

This is a sample of the themes and musical settings for the score of "A Cadaver Christmas," released 2011.  For the complete soundtrack of the movie score, head to www.howlinwolfrecords.com/
Music (c) 2011 William Campbell

Cadaver - medley

Commissioned by the Quad City Symphony Orchestra in honor of their 100th Season

Where the River Bends” is a musical depiction of an American Landscape. The strings provide foundation and swooping commentary; clarinets flow like the movement of a river; lower pitched instruments are grounding and substantive; the oboes, flutes and brass tend the organic lyrical idea like an honest farmer works the earth. 

The music starts softly in the strings and solo winds, depicting perhaps a quiet morning, illuminating the beautifully simple landscape we call home.  A single pitch outside the opening harmonic area heralds a change to quick overlapping patterns and strong melodic statements in the brass.  After a few cadences we move to a more reflective character and a new harmonic area, yet still with movement in the strings.  A duet with flute and oboe carry us through and into the return to the loud, bold music of before, and the piece ends assuringly.

Although suggestive of a specific locale, “Where the River Bends” is not necessarily in reference to any particular place.  I composed it as a musical depiction of any moment or scene when we are pleasantly surprised with beauty, as when we turn a corner or come over a mountain and our senses are awakened to simple grandeur.  It is intended to honor this American landscape and the people who live here with music that is pastoral and exuberant, peaceful and bold.


Where The River Bends

Piano Quintet, by William Campbell.  
I: Light Within
II. Hymn to Beauty 
III. Claritas Unfolding 
IV. Shining Brightly

The Piano Quintet was written in 2010-11 to honor a humanitarian organization, and is intended to express the outward expression of inner beauty. Commissioned to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Churches United (of the Quad Cities Area), it was first performed with myself at the piano with the Maia String Quartet on April 28, 2011.

While composing the music I was reading John O’Donohue’s "Beauty: The Invisible Embrace," and reflecting on words that specifically call people to action as a reflection of the gift of grace. I was also traveling a lot and interacted with people all over the world from many backgrounds. It became increasingly obvious to me that individual character as evidenced in good works can have a powerfully positive effect beyond those directly impacted, and for a sustained time. As a composer, then, I wanted to write something full of positive energy.

The music unfolds over four movements, and is characterized by simple harmonies, syncopated rhythms, and compact melodies. The listener will be aware of conversations between various instruments as passages are imitated or answered in different ways. These are intended to be reflective of the inner life of meditative prayer, and the ways that certain questions are answered within us, as the light of understanding moves from one idea to another allowing for clarity and outward expression.

01 Piano Quintet, Movement I

Hidden Garden

Mysterioso

For World Piano Day, here's something I've been working on for the next album. Originally premiered in the beautiful chapel on the campus of St. Martin's University in Lacey, Washington, "Finding Peace" evolved out of a film score, and has taken on a gentle life of its own.
#celebratepianoday #pianoday2018 #pianoday

Finding Peace

"Coyote Dances" is a new work for orchestra by William Campbell, and premiered on March 31, 2012 by the Quad City Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mark Russell Smith.  It also exists as a concert band piece.
The music starts quietly enough, but soon builds to an exuberant mixed-meter section, and ends with a heroic exclamation point.  To read a preview please visit: http://www.rcreader.com/music/william-campbell-coyote-dances-preview/
For more information about the composer please visit:
http://www.williamcampbellmusic.com 

Coyote Dances, for orchestra

The documentary film LIFEBOAT showcases refugees desperate enough to risk their lives in rubber boats leaving Libya in the middle of the night, despite a high probability of drowning. With few resources but certain that civil society must intervene, volunteers from a German non-profit risk the waves of the Mediterranean to pluck refugees from sinking rafts. 
Nominated for an Academy Award (Oscars) for Best Documentary Short, and nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy.

Composer William Campbell has created a haunting, original score for this award winning film. Borne out of a decades-long working partnership with filmmaker Skye Fitzgerald, Campbell imbues a story of refugees at sea with rich musical atmospherics that enrich and deepen the film's emotional impact. This cue is the final music with four separate screen changes to include ending scene, dedication card, credits, and fade. It contains almost all the main themes used throughout the 24-minute documentary short.

Lifeboat

Cue 7, Lifeboat (ending credits)

Illuminans Altissime / Most High Enlightenment

Illuminans Altissime, 
Poli nitentis sidera,
Pax, vita, lumen, veritas,
Jesu, fave precantibus.

Seu stella partum Virginis
Caelo micans signaverit,
Et hoc adoratum die
Praesepe Magos duxerit.
Amen.

Most high illumination,
In the sky shining with the stars,
Peace, life, light, and truth,
Lord Jesus, be gracious to those who pray to you.

By the star shining in heaven
You signaled the birth from the Virgin,
And led the Magi on this day
Before the manger to adore you.
Amen

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
One of the "Five Ambrosian Hymns" set in 2012-2016 by William Campbell

Based on hymns that were chanted in Milan by a church yearning for community and a way to express their faith, these five arrangements are performance pieces for modern choirs based on hymns written in the 4th Century by St. Ambrose of Milan. The original music sounds very much like what we would consider to be chant, but in a style that was specific to Ambrose, and came to be known as Milanese or Ambrosian in style. They start with an invitation of Christ's presence into this world through the mystery of the Virgin Mary in explicitly trinitarian language, traditionally sung in the season of Advent. Two hymns of praise follow, each with their own expression of glory as hymns of the morning. These are followed by a song for Epiphany, set as a meditative reflection of our own journey as we follow our own paths toward enlightenment. The final hymn is a peaceful and simple Trinitarian prayer, invoking a calm light as we move into the evening.

I folded the original melodies and words of St. Ambrose into my music as foundational material, adding harmony parts, some new melodic material, and changing modes and keys at multiple points.  The original melody is always present even as other parts are added, and my hope is that these parts add to the meaning of the texts, and add interest for our contemporary sensibilities.  They are composed for the standard four chorus parts of soprano, alto, tenor, bass. To stay true to the prayerful nature of the words, the music is often quite slow and deliberate, invoking the chant as originally sung. All of these hymns are bound together not only by the style of chant, but also textually by various images of light, shimmering, illuminating, and casting out the darkness of our lives.

Illuminans Altissime

AUTUMN WINDS
Music & Words (c) 2005 by William Campbell
Performance by Andrew Childs, tenor, and William Campbell, piano.


Autumn winds are blowing, blowing 
Blowing leaves around me. 
Must I leave it all behind me 
As I walk through open doors that once were closed? 
When I close my eyes to see 
The visions I once loved 
Will I remember 
 Building and living in a house of mud and straw; 
 Singing for the beauty of the earth? 
 Roses and jasmine under the mesquite tree; 
 Eating fruit from our garden? 
 
Autumn leaves are falling, falling 
Falling down around me. 
Must I fall upon the ground to be set free? 
 Freedom is making the life that we lead; 
 Freedom is change. 
 Freedom is strength we gain 
  From the mountains rising purple 
  Behind our desert house 
  And the trees reaching upwards 
  To the harvest moon. 
 
Autumn winds are blowing, blowing, 
And the leaves are falling. 
But I still remember. 

Autumn Winds, song for voice & piano

Burning The Rafts

Jon And The Sea

Sons & Daughters of Thunder is a drama about the "Lane Debates" in 1843 concerning the abolition of slaves, and is centered on Thedore Wells and a young Harriet Beecher (Stowe).

Last Memory & Douglass Speech

William Campbell is a pianist and award-winning composer of music for all genres. He creates clearly evocative musical soundscapes that communicate emotions from broodingly dark to exuberantly joyful.

Campbell's music for films includes work nominated for two Oscars (Academy Awards) in 2021 and 2019, an Emmy nomination in 2020. His recent scores have earned the awards for best film score in 2020 by the Iowa Motion Pictures Association, and best original score at the 2021 (International) Luminous Frames Festival. Additional awards include those from ASCAP, Kennedy Center American Collegiate Theater Festival, Penfield Music Commission, Waging Peace, and multiple teaching institutions. In 2021 he released the critically acclaimed album of solo piano music, "All In Due Time," and in 2023 the album for piano & electronics titled "Together We Rise" debuted at number 11 on the Billboard Classical Crossover Chart. He is also a sought-after composer for orchestral, chamber, and vocal music, and is regularly commissioned to write new works by various organizations every year. As a performer, he has led multiple new music groups and has played with orchestras and as a soloist in North and South America. 

Current and recently finished projects include two new film scores, a work for choir, and chamber music. For nearly two decades William was Professor of Music at St. Ambrose University and Director of Contemporary Music at St. Paul Lutheran Church. He currently lives in the Southwest hills of Portland, Oregon, and is the Department Chair and Director of Compositional Activities at Linfield University.

Popular tracks by William Campbell Music