Pianist, author, educator and lecturer William Westney is the originator and coordinator of “Meaning in the Arts – an Interdisciplinary Conversation.”  Westney is a member of Texas Tech’s Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism.

Winner of the top piano prize of the Geneva International Competition (Switzerland), he appeared thereafter as soloist with such major orchestras as l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Houston, San Antonio and New Haven Symphonies.  Westney holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queens College in New York and a Masters and Doctorate in performance from Yale University, all with highest honors.  His extensive concert career includes prize-winning recordings and solo recitals at New York's Lincoln Center, throughout Europe and Asia, and on National Public Radio ("Performance Today").

Westney holds two endowed positions at Texas Tech University – Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor and Browning Artist-in-Residence – and in 2008 received the university’s highest teaching honor, the Chancellor’s Council Distinguished Teaching Award. In 2006 he was an educational consultant at universities in Korea and in Beijing, China under the Council for International Exchange of Scholars "Senior Specialist" program, through which the U.S. State Department sends professors around the world for intensive residencies. As an interdisciplinary scholar he will serve as the Hans Christian Andersen Guest Professor at the University of Southern Denmark (Odense) during the 2009-10 academic year.

His lectures and workshops have ranged beyond the realm of music, and audiences have included professional photographers, interior designers, culinary students, educators, physicians, business professionals and philosophers.

Westney's unique and trailblazing Un-Master Class®performance workshops were described as "fascinating" in a featured and illustrated New York Times article.  They are popular in the U.S. and abroad, having been held at such prominent centers as the Aspen School, Peabody Conservatory, Kennedy Center, Royal Conservatory (Toronto), Cleveland Institute, Tanglewood Institute, Royal College of Music (London), University for Music and the Performing Arts (Vienna), Central Conservatory (Beijing) and the Juilliard School.

William Westney’s book THE PERFECT WRONG NOTE was released in Fall 2003 to critical acclaim.  According to the Library Journal, it is a “well-thought-out approach to which many aspire, but which few attain,” and American Record Guide described it as “refreshing and rewarding.” Now in its second printing, it has sold over 10,000 copies worldwide.