William Bland (b. 1947, West Virginia), studied at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland, graduating in 1973 with a DMA in musical composition. His composition teachers were Benjamin Lees, Ernst Krenek, Earle Brown and Richard Rodney Bennett. After serving as an assistant to Peabody’s Director, Richard Franko Goldman, Bland moved to New York City, where he performed and taught, thereafter returning to West Virginia, where for many years he worked as a community musician, before retiring to concentrate completely on composition. William Bland has produced a sizable catalog of solo, chamber, and orchestral music, and his music has been performed, published, and broadcast widely in the USA and Europe.