Esterhazy Quartet; Eva Szekely, violin; John McLeod, violin; Leslie Perna, viola; Carolyn Kenneson, viola; Carleton Spotts, cello; Darry Dolezal, cello
James Willey (b. 1939, Lynn, MA) began composing at an early age He attended the Eastman School of Music where he studied composition with Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson. Willey later attended the Tanglewood Music Center where he studied with Gunther Schuller. The recipient of three National Endowment for the Arts Awards, his works have been performed by the Baltimore Symphony, the Rochester and Buffalo Philharmonic orchestras, the Seattle Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Esterhazy Quartet, the Audubon Quartet, the Dorian Quintet, Collage, the Society for New Music and the Twentieth Century Consort. His Sonata for Horn and Piano was the 1990 winner of the International Horn Society's annual composition competition and his String Quartet No. 6 was a semi-finalist in the 1991 Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards. Willey's A Millennial Boogie was premiered in 1999 as part of a "Dance Mix" by conductor David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony.
Esterhazy Quartet
James Willey: String Quartets Nos. 1, 2, & 6
String Quartet No. 6: I. Slow, then Fast
James Willey
String Quartet No. 6: II. Slow
String Quartet No. 6: III. Very Fast
String Quartet No. 6: IV. Very Slow
String Quartet No. 1
String Quartet No. 2: I. Slow, Moderately Fast, Slow
String Quartet No. 2: II. Fast
String Quartet No. 2: III. Slow
String Quartet No. 2: IV. Very Fast
James Willey: Chamber Works