About William

William in his natural habitat

William Zeitler has been a musician since age 5, when Santa brought a piano to his house. (The chimney was never the same.) Intrigued, he figured out how to climb up onto the bench in spite of his short legs, and started spending hours and hours trying to figure out how to play it. To preserve their sanity, his parents started William on lessons. When asked if his parents made him practice, he says: "No, my parents had to make me STOP!"

William went on to earn a B.F.A. in harpsichord from the California Institute of the Arts. Since then, William has been a freelance professional composer, pianist, organist, and glass armonica player.

"I don't think we appreciate how powerful and helpful Music can be—we've reduced it to crass filling-in-the-silence in elevators. Instead, Music can serve so much more positive ends. I love writing scores for educational films—education is nothing but good. And the stories of the pioneers of mathematics, science, and engineering are as passionate and heartbreaking as any of the great artists. (See Galois, Galileo, and Tesla respectively.) In my film scores I try to capture some of the Passion and Wonder with which these pioneers contemplated our magical world, as they risked all to understand some small part of it

In fact, in ALL of my music I try to capture some faint echo of the Flaming Heart we experience when we truly connect with our Magical World—whether that be artistically, scientifically, or with our True Self.

William's musical activities include:

* Composing for his CDs: he has released 10 CDs to date.

* Composing film scores: his most recent being the score for "VIRTIS, the Visible and InfraRed Thermal Imaging Spectrometer"—the story of a space probe, from concept to images being sent back, and the people behind it.

* Performing on the glass armonica: Benjamin Franklin's genius transformed the wet-finger-around-the-wineglass party trick into a magical musical instrument.

William Zeitler & his glass armonica

Invented in 1761, it was very popular in Europe in Franklin's day—even Mozart and Beethoven composed for it. But musical fashions changed and it all but disappeared in the early 1800's. William is one of only a handful of glass armonica players worldwide. To learn more about the glass armonica, visit William's website devoted to it: www.GlassArmonica.com

William has performed worldwide on his glass armonica, and has been featured in film scores (the most recent being HBO's Taking Chance).

William has also been commissioned to compose and perform music for glass armonica and orchestra for the Seattle Philharmonic and Orchestra Seattle, and choral music (with and without the glass armonica) for I Cantori di Carmel (Monterey, CA), to name just a few.

Count Bachula playing the mighty pipe organ at Castle Bachula

* Count Bachula: the not-so-great-great-great uncle of the famous J.S.Bach—on the Transylvania side. In the tradition of P.D.Q.Bach, some say William resembles Count Bachula, but of course that is ridiculous. See the Count's website, and his album Gothic Christmas.

* Sacred Musician: William is 'chief musician' for a Taizé service (almost entirely music—no sermon!) on the first Sunday evening of each month at Redlands United Methodist Church (Redlands, CA). Music William has written for these services can be found here. William also performs on his glass armonica at these Taizé services.