William H Ellison was born in the late 1940’s, raised in the Southwestern United States and graduated high school in late 1960’s. After high school, he went to college studying music performance, music composition, and music education and then joined the Army. After being discharged, he returned college studying music performance and education. Mr. Ellison achieved advanced degrees in Music Composition, Music Theory, and Music Education. He studied composition and theory under Dr. Warner Hutchison, Dr. William “Doc” Tietze, and Dr. Lewis Spencer and Secondary Education in Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, Arizona, and Washington state.
Mr. Ellison played professionally with multiple organizations in the Southwest and Northwest in the United States. He also taught high school band throughout the American Southwest and Northwest directing pit orchestras for musicals, symphonic bands and wind ensembles, church choirs and small vocal groups. While in the Northwest, Mr. Ellison started working in the technology fields in computer and network communications and security.
In 2015 Mr. Ellison moved back to the Southwest US returning to music performance and composition. He was commissioned in 2020 to set all 150 Psalms to contemporary music. He is composing these Psalms for a variety of musical styles and accompaniments. Mr. Ellison’s wish is to have anyone who wants to perform any of the compositions to have full access to the music. All the compositions include score and full instrumentation. Mr. Ellison requests that you message him with who is performing the composition. Add and if the performance is for profit, that 10% of the profit go to help the needy and homeless in your area.
