William McColl

William Duncan McColl (May 18, 1933 – January 7, 2024) was an American clarinetist and professor of music.

Biography

McColl was born on May 18, 1933, in Port Huron, Michigan, to Duncan and Margaret McColl. He began playing clarinet at the age of twelve. He later attended National Music Camp at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. In 1956 he was drafted under the Military Selective Service Act and became a member of the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra from 1957 to 1958; he was also part of the Seventh Army Wind quintet. He met his wife, Sue, who was then a bassoonist, in Puerto Rico, where his son was born. In 1968 he moved to Seattle with the other members of the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet, which had become the Wind Quintet in Residence of the University of Washington, where he was a professor from 1968 to 2006. He recorded solo and chamber works on Musical Heritage, and Crystal labels (with the Soni Ventorum), as well as on the Atlantic, Decca and Harmonia Mundi labels.

McColl was heralded as a "superb clarinetist", "graceful" and "virtuosic and full of life".

McColl died due to respiratory failure in Seattle, on January 7, 2024, at the age of 90.