William Jason Raynovich’s compositions have been performed at national festivals as well as many local venues. He has received commissions through organizations such as the Chicago Composers Forum, homeroomchicago.org, Access Contemporary Music (Chicago, IL), Renaissance Society (Chicago, IL), Athens Municipal Small Brass Ensemble (Athens, Greece), and the Ear Taxi Festival (Chicago, IL). Currently, William has been working with the open-source visual programming language, Pure Data, to create interactive compositions using notational systems and a series of unconventional instruments built in collaboration with artist Rebecca Reineke. These compositions, including tre’, and his cello solo piece, now for cello and computer, explore self-similarity systems with audio processing.

As a performer specializing in the works of experimental composers, he has given numerous lectures and performances on improvisation and the performance practice of indeterminate music at national and international festivals. Highlights of his work with this music include premiering Christian Wolff’s Two Players, co-producing a performance of John Cage’s Musicircus, directing two music festivals of music by Christian Wolff and James Tenney. William has performed at venues, music series, and institutions such as Krannert Center for the Performing Arts (Urbana, IL), Merce Cunningham Dance Company (Urbana, IL), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL),  Ellsworth Snyder Concert Series (Chicago, IL), Music from Almost Yesterday (Milwaukee, WI), 12 Nights (Miami, FL), University of Macedonia (Thessaloniki, Greece), Electronic Music Midwest (Romeoville, IL), International Computer Music Conference (New Orleans, LA), and Chicago’s Ear Taxi Festival 2016 and 2021.   

William received his DMA from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in music composition with emphasis in cello performance. He is currently Associate Professor of Music at Chicago State University.