J. William Greene serves as Organist-Choirmaster at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he lives with his wife and daughters, two cats, and a dog named Poco.
His lifelong love of the organ and its music has been his gateway into forty years of service to the church. A graduate of Appalachian State University, Northwestern University, and the Eastman School of Music, where he received the Doctor of Musical Arts and Performer’s Certificate, Dr. Greene has taught organ at Appalachian State, the Nazareth College of Rochester, New York, and Ithaca College. His much-beloved organ professors have included H. Max Smith, Wolfgang Rübsam, and Russell Saunders.
Along his educational pathway, he acquired a passion for the subtleties of the harpsichord and spent a year studying that instrument with Gustav Leonhardt in the Netherlands under an ITT International Fellowship. Concurrently with the completion of his DMA, he received a Masters degree in harpsichord, studying with Arthur Haas.
In the church, Dr. Greene has found great joy in working with choirs, large and small, in styles ranging from plainchant to the thoroughly modern. He is especially interested in writing organ and choral music that is creative, but also accessible to most church musicians. For his more than 160 pieces in print, he has received multiple ASCAP+ awards from the American Society of Composers, Arrangers, and Publishers.
