About Us
Meet the Artistic Director
Of his performances of Monteverdi's Vespers in San Francisco in July of 2005, the San Francisco Classical Voice said, "William Jon Gray conducted the combined [Carmel Bach] Festival Chorale and members of the Festival Orchestra in a religious masterpiece, not one of Bach's but the massive Claudio Monteverdi Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610 to the largest packed house I've seen at Old First in over 35 years of on-and-off reviewing there. It created a sensation, as indeed it deserves when so ably presented. Fine playing and excellent vocal work littered the evening with one peak experience after another...the applause hit like a prolonged tsunami."
William Jon Gray is Assistant Professor at the Indiana University School of Music, where he teaches graduate-level conducting, choral literature, and score study. He is Associate Conductor of the Carmel Bach Festival in California where he prepares and performs major choral/orchestral works in collaboration with internationally renowned conductor Bruno Weil. He served as Interim Conductor of the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, preparing the Choir for performances of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius and Vaughan William's Serenade to Music with Raymond Leppard and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. As Artistic Director of the Bach Chorale Singers, William Jon Gray has received high praise for his performances of major choral/orchestral works, including Verdi’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Mass in C, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Handel’s Solomon and Messiah, Haydn’s The Creation, Mozart's Requiem, The Magic Flute, and Coronation Mass, Bach’s Mass in B Minor and St. Matthew Passion, Brahms' Requiem, and Orff’s Carmina Burana. The Bach Chorale Singers' 1998 commercially released CD recording In Praise of the Organ: Latin Choral and Organ Music of Zoltán Kodály under Mr. Gray’s direction received national attention and critical acclaim in the American Record Guide and the American Organist.
William Jon Gray served as Artistic Director of the Masterworks Chorus and Orchestra of Washington, D.C. from 1986 to 1993. He has been Assistant Conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, and has appeared as guest conductor with the National Chamber Orchestra, the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra, and the Handel and Haydn Society.
Mr. Gray studied at Indiana University, the Juilliard School, the New England Conservatory, and Boston University, and has studied conducting with Robert Porco, Thomas Dunn, and Richard Pittman. William Jon Gray worked and performed frequently with Robert Shaw, and has appeared as a member of the Robert Shaw Festival Singers in recordings and concerts in France, and in concerts at Carnegie Hall.
William Jon Gray’s 2005-2006 appearances include the Indianapolis and Bloomington premieres of Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor in Robert Levin’s new reconstruction, with the Indiana University Symphony Orchestra, University Singers, and University Chorale, Handel’s Israel in Egypt in California with the Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra and Chorale, Bach cantatas and instrumental works with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra and the KammerBach Ensemble, Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers with the Bach Chorale Singers and Bloomington Early Music Festival Baroque Orchestra, and performances in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and Carmel of Mexican Baroque: Masterpieces from Mexico City Cathedral.
