Young tubist Joshua Williams prepares for Swiss festival and upcoming ASO gig

Oh to be young and a whiz – Like Joshua Williams, 23 and preparing to spend the summer in the Swiss Alps as one of a handful of musicians selected to participate this month in the Academy of the Verbier Festival. Admission to the vaunted summer program represents the height of recognition for an emerging classical musician, a place among 140 world-class talents selected from nearly 2,400 applicants worldwide. 

The Academy is the festival’s “respiratory system, the laboratory where future talents are discovered and nurtured,” according to organizers. It is a summer of intensive work with leading conductors and mentoring by masters of their respective instruments, a comprehensive program including learning, rehearsals and performing: a series of six “Academy Presents” concerts that draw audiences from around the globe. 

Williams, an Atlanta native who will perform with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra next season, sees the invitation to Verbier as “a huge honor to play with this great ensemble, and I’m humbled to do this.” 

He’s heard classmates talk about the Verbier Festival and Academy since his freshman year at The Juilliard School, “that the best players go to Verbier, that it is the very best festival.” He even auditioned for it as a freshman, though he didn’t make the cut. “I was naïve, and at 18 not good enough,” he says. 

But after five years at Juilliard, he was ready. “It’s a full-circle moment for me to be a part of this,” he says. It represents a significant accomplishment in his early career as he readies himself for “my dream job,” which he will begin this fall as tubist with the ASO. 

Wait. Tubist? What kid starting out in band in middle school band volunteers to be the one playing the tuba? 

“I started on saxophone,” Williams says. Born in New Orleans, he thought sax might somehow connect him with his roots, though he was only 3 years old when his family moved to Atlanta. 

“But there were too many saxophone players, and no one playing the tuba,” he says. “My older brother played the tuba, and I thought it was cool because he played it. And I liked the sound. I practiced and got better.” 

Indeed. To the point that he was admitted to the ASO’s Talent Development Program.

“That’s where it all changed for me — my introduction to the world of classical music,” says Williams. He started lessons with Michael Moore, who has occupied the Principal Tuba seat for the ASO for 54 years. He learned that the path to a conservatory was to “take lessons, go to summer camps and practice really hard.” 

Those low tones, which also led him to learning the bass and playing jazz, have sounded out a distinguished career path for him. His facility with what Moore calls “a rather unwieldy beast” already has produced high honors: from the all-state high school band, to the ASO Youth Orchestra, to Georgia State University’s Rialto jazz program, to becoming a National Young Arts Finalist in 2017, to winning the inaugural Kennesaw State University Concerto Competition in 2018, to becoming the first tubist to win the Duo Competition at the esteemed Music Academy in Santa Barbara in 2022. 

Williams has found a way to tame the beast, to beat the odds with virtuosic playing of that low-toned clunky instrument. Along the way, there was Juilliard. 

“I applied to a bunch of different music schools; Juilliard wasn’t even on my radar,” he says. But he got a chance to audition and came away with “the best scholarship offer of any school I’d applied to. That made it an easy choice. And it turned out to be the perfect place for me.” 

Not just Juilliard but playing out in New York City. “The intensity of playing there and the way they value music teaches you what it means to be a citizen of the arts, not just a performer,” he says. 

As Williams prepares for Verbier, he also looks forward to starting his dream job this fall with the ASO. It is the inaugural year of an ASO fellowship program that will enable him sit in for Moore — there’s only one tuba in the orchestra — for 25 paid weeks. In addition to his stipend, he’ll study with Moore, from whom he took lessons for four years in high school, and prepare to audition for a full-time spot with other orchestras. 

“This has always been my dream job, the orchestra and section I grew up watching and learning from,” he says. “At 23, I’m going to be around my family and making great music with the orchestra.”

It’s hard to imagine this boundless talent with an unlikely instrument not fulfilling his boundless dreams. “I’ve always wanted to be the principal tuba in the ASO,” he says. “And one day, with the New York Philharmonic.”

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Mike Shaw is a jazz pianist who has performed for decades in New Orleans and Atlanta. He is the author of the novel The Musician. He is the founder of Shade Communications, a marketing company.