Bullock, Bill (William J. ), 1943-
Biography
Dr. Bullock was born in 1943 in Crawfordsville, Indiana. He is a retired professor of music, choral conductor, and arts administrator. He graduated from The Florida State University with a BME, MA, and PhD. He taught music and conducted choruses at Tarrant County Junior College in Texas (1968-1977), the University of Southern Mississippi (1977-1982) and Columbus College/Columbus State University (GA) Schwob School of Music (1982-2001). While in Columbus he conducted the Columbus Civic Chorale and several other local choral groups. During his career, Dr. Bullock designed concerts around many different themes, conducted small- and large-scale choral works and theater productions, served as adjudicator and guest conductor in seven south and southwestern states, led concert tours of Mexico and Eastern and Western Europe, and facilitated study tours of Scandinavia, Australia, Vienna, and Vancouver. He also served as a state president of the American Choral Directors Association, executive director of Georgia’s Southeastern Music Center, and choirmaster for Methodists and Episcopal churches.
In 2000 Dr. Bullock founded the professional chorus Cantus Columbus. Throughout the chorus’ twenty-year existence he created and conducted its imaginative programs, which included many of his own arrangements. Most of the chorus’s concerts were either patterned after famed conductor Robert Shaw’s Christmas concerts or devoted to arrangements (many with string quartet) of songs by the five founders of the Great American Songbooks. In 2003 Dr. Bullock joined the staff of Columbus, Georgia’s newly established RiverCenter for the Performing Arts, ultimately serving as the center’s third executive director (2009-2015).
An authority on choral literature, Dr. Bullock is known for his many prosodic English translations which retain the original’s syllable count, stress patterns, and if present, rhyme scheme. He has published journal articles, music editions and arrangements, a book on the cantatas of J. S. Bach and the only bilingual edition of the Brahms Requiem, which includes his modern, prosodic translation.
Found in 2 Collections and/or Records:
Cantus Columbus Records
This collection contains materials detailing the administration of Cantus Columbus, including legal papers relating to its incorporation; logistics of concerts including grant funding, members, details on the pieces played at each concert, and touring information.
Also present are scores for conductor and musicians, and in most cases, recordings of the concerts on cassette tapes and thumb drives.