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Composer and conductor Julius Williams remembers his childhood in Harlem and Queens, New York. He discusses his parents, grandmother, grade school. He also talks about working as a young man at Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church, where his grandmother had taken him as a boy. Julius Williams recalls his youth in Queens, New York, where he learned music by playing his uncle's piano, taking lessons and playing at church and went on to Andrew Jackson High School of Music and Art, a summer program at Manhattan School of Music, and four years at Lehman College's Hartt School of Music in the Bronx. Williams credits musical mentors including John Motley, Coleridge Taylor Perkinson, Ulysses Kay and Fred Norman who all recognized his talent and encouraged him in his career. Conductor and composer Julius P. Williams discusses his musical growth studying conducting at the Aspen Musical Festival and School and with mentors such as Fred Roland and Coleridge Taylor Perkinson. He recalls his experiences conducting in many different cities over the course of his career. Conductor and composer Julius Williams talks about various issues and concerns in his career, including the CD "Symphonic Brotherhood", a compilation of African American symphonic music, the music organization VIDEMUS which promotes the work of minority and women composers, and his struggle to be taken seriously as an African American symphonic conductor. Julius Williams talks about future goals, his values and his hopes for a reunification of the black community.

A prolific composer, Maestro Williams has created dozens of works for virtually every genre of contemporary classical performance, including opera, ballet, orchestra, chamber ensemble, chorus and solo voice, dance, musical theatre and film.

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