Sebastian is a composer & pianist based in southern California. He utilizes a combination of traditional craft and modern aesthetics to create his unique style. His first major performance as a piano soloist was the premiere of his composition Concertino for Piano and Orchestra with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra at the age of 9. Sebastian obtained his B.M. in Composition from the Curtis Institute of Music & his M.M. in Composition from the University of Southern California. From ’16-’18, he was the Resident Composer of the Louisville Orchestra. He is the youngest three-time BMI Student Composer Awards winner in the history of the competition (’02, ’05, & ’07). He won five ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Awards (’01, ’02, ’04, ’05, & ’06). He was awarded a $50K scholarship as a Davidson Fellow Laureate by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development in '02. He played in the Louisville Orchestra in “The American Project” featuring Yuja Wang as piano soloist and Teddy Abrams and Michael Tilson Thomas as composers, which won a Grammy in the “Best Instrumental Classical Solo” category in ’24. His works have been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, the Louisville Ballet, the Louisville Orchestra, the Cleveland Chamber Festival, the Britt Festival Orchestra, the Louisville Chamber Choir, and the NouLou Chamber Players. His "Classical Symphony”, premiered by the Louisville Orchestra in January ‘15, is subject of Episode 9: “First Symphony” of the Music Makes a City Now PBS documentary cycle. "Between Heaven and Earth", in collaboration with Kurdish Baghdad-native visual artist Vian Sora, premiered on February 23 & 24, ’18 by the Louisville Orchestra & Louisville Chamber Choir, in Whitney Hall at the Kentucky Center, in Louisville, KY. Sebastian's new Piano Concerto "The Empress", for piano and full orchestra, premiered on June 17, '22, in the Britt Festival Pavilion by the Britt Festival Orchestra, in Jacksonville, OR. His new Piano Trio No. 2 “Beyond Silence” premiered on November 20, ‘22, by Trio Barclay, at the Barclay Theatre, in Irvine, CA. He performed the piano solo part to Bernstein’s “Symphony 2: The Age of Anxiety” with the Louisville Orchestra on March 31 & April 1, ’23, at Whitney Hall in the Kentucky Center, in Louisville, KY. His new film score for the silent horror classic “Nosferatu” premiered October 27 & 28, ’23, by the Louisville Orchestra at Whitney Hall in the Kentucky Center, in Louisville, KY. He is Louisville Orchestra’s first-call pianist. At the Orange County School of the Arts, he is an instructor for the Instrumental Music & Piano programs, and works as an accompanist for the Instrumental Music, Classical Voice, and Musical Theatre departments. His publishing company is Sebastian Press, registered under the American Society of Composers, Authors, & Publishers (ASCAP).

American pianist William Wolfram was a silver medalist at both the William Kapell and the Naumburg International Piano Competitions and a bronze medalist at the prestigious Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow.

​Wolfram has appeared with many of the greatest orchestras of the world and has developed a special reputation as the rare concerto soloist who is also equally versatile and adept as a recitalist, accompanist and chamber musician. In all of these genres, he is highly sought after for his special focus on the music of Franz Liszt and Beethoven and is a special champion for the music of modernist 20th century American composers.

 

His concerto debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony under the baton of Leonard Slatkin was the first in a long succession of appearances and career relationships with numerous American conductors and orchestras. He has also appeared with the San Francisco, Saint Louis, Indianapolis, Seattle and New Jersey symphonies, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington D.C.), the Baltimore Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Nashville Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the San Diego Symphony, the Edmonton Symphony, the Columbus Symphony, the Florida Orchestra, and the Grand Teton and San Luis Obispo Mozart festival orchestras, among many others. He enjoys regular and ongoing close associations with the Dallas Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony, the Phoenix Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra as well as the musicians of the New York Philharmonic for chamber concerts in the United States.

 

Internationally recognized conductors with whom he has worked include Osmo Vanska, Andrew Litton, Jerzy Semkow, Mark Wigglesworth, Jeffrey Tate, Vladimir Spivakov, Michael Christie, Gerard Schwarz, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Jeffrey Kahane, James Judd, Roberto Minczuk, Stefan Sanderling, JoAnn Falletta, James Paul, Carlos Kalmar, Hans Vonk, Joseph Silverstein, Jens Nygaard, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Vasily Petrenko.

 

Abroad, Wolfram has appeared with the BBC Symphony Orchestra of London, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the RTE Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (Dublin), the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Bergen Philharmonic (Norway), the Beethovenhalle Orchestra Bonn, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and many others.

 

An enthusiastic supporter of new music, he has collaborated with and performed music by composers such as Aaron Jay Kernis, Kenneth Frazelle, Marc Andre Dalbavie, Kenji Bunch, and Paul Chihara. His world premiere performance of the Chihara re-orchestration of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1, with the Milwaukee Symphony under the baton of Andreas Delfs, was met with great critical attention and acclaim.

 

Other highlights include several chamber music collaborations, including recitals and recordings with Oscar Shumsky, recitals with Harvey Shapiro and numerous collaborations with Leonard Rose.  He also performed Richard Strauss’s setting of the Tennyson poem Enoch Arden with the Oscar-winning actress Louise Rainer, and with actor Jeff Steitzer.

 

Wolfram has also performed as a guest artist with prominent ballet companies including ABT, Pittsburgh Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Carolina Ballet and Boston Ballet, working with noted choreographers including Jiri Kylian, Edward Villella, Robert Weiss, and Agnes De Mille. 

 

Wolfram has extensive experience in the recording studio. He has recorded four titles on the Naxos label in his series of Franz Liszt Opera Transcriptions and two other chamber music titles for Naxos with violinist Philippe Quint (music of Miklos Rosza and John Corigliano). Also for Naxos he has recorded the music of Earl Kim with piano and orchestra - the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland behind him. For the Albany label, he recorded the piano concertos of Edward Collins with Marin Alsop and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.  He most recently recorded the Bach Goldberg Variations on the PlayClassics label.

 

As educator and teacher, Mr. Wolfram serves as a member of the piano faculty at Manhattan School of Music, where he also coaches chamber music. He is also a long-standing member of the piano faculty at the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina, and a regular featured guest at the Colorado College Music Festival in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 

 

In print and other media Wolfram was the focus of a full chapter in Joseph Horowitz's book, The Ivory Trade: Music and the Business of Music at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. On television, he was a featured pianist in the documentary of the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition.

 

A graduate of the Juilliard School, William Wolfram resides in New York City and is a Yamaha artist.