Dr. William L. Lake, Jr. is a nationally recognized conductor, educator, and arts leader whose

influence extends across the United States and Canada, and whose work bridges artistic

excellence, entrepreneurial organization building, and civic impact. He serves as Music and Artistic

Director of the Capital Wind Symphony, one of the nation's premier professional wind ensembles,

and as Director of Concert Bands and Associate Professor of Music at the Reva and Sid Dewberry

Family School of Music at George Mason University.

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Appointed Music and Artistic Director of the Capital Wind Symphony in 2024, Dr. Lake leads an

ensemble comprised of elite musicians from across the Washington, D.C. region, including

members of United States military bands, leading freelance performers, studio teachers, and

music educators. Under his leadership, the ensemble has expanded its artistic vision through

major collaborations, consortium premieres, community partnerships, and performances at Capital One Hall and other prominent venues, including a world-record performance of 239 simultaneous piccolo players and its largest single-concert audience in organizational history. Dr. Lake personally leads the organization's marketing, donor development, and grant strategy, growing organizational revenue by 155% in a single fiscal year and turning a net operating loss into consistent net profitability across consecutive fiscal years, while building a tiered annual giving program and launching the CWS 5K, a first-of-its-kind community fundraising campaign that exceeded expectations in its debut season. His work with the ensemble reflects a rare combination of artistic risk-taking, entrepreneurial organizational leadership, and meaningful audience engagement.

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At George Mason University, Dr. Lake provides visionary leadership for the Mason Bands program, conducting the Wind Symphony and Symphonic Band and guiding the artistic, curricular, and recruitment strategy for the wind, brass, and percussion areas. He is recognized as an effective recruitment strategist within the schools of music community, having built a data-driven recruitment framework that has meaningfully strengthened ensemble enrollment and readiness. He teaches undergraduate and graduate conducting, wind literature, and capstone courses focused on professional musical communication, while mentoring graduate conductors who now serve as directors of bands and university faculty nationwide. His leadership emphasizes inclusive repertoire, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the preparation of students for impactful artistic careers.

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Dr. Lake is the founder and director of the Mason Summer Band Camp and the Mason Wind Conducting Symposium, two programs that extend Mason Bands' educational reach to pre-collegiate musicians and emerging conductors alike.

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Previously, Dr. Lake served as Associate Director of Bands and Assistant Professor of Music Education at the Crane School of Music (SUNY–Potsdam), where he also served as Special Assistant to the Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives.

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Dr. Lake earned the Doctor of Musical Arts in Instrumental Conducting from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where his dissertation focused on performance practice and analysis of John Mackey's Songs from the End of the World. He holds a Master of Music in Wind Conducting from the University of Maryland, College Park, a Master of Music Education from Boston University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Jazz Studies (Piano Performance) from the University of Maryland. His academic training reflects a rare synthesis of conducting, pedagogy, scholarship, and applied musicianship, one further shaped by a multigenre artistic biography spanning jazz piano, classical piano, and pipe organ. This breadth informs his pedagogical framework for style and interpretation, "When Notation Runs Out," which centers the expansion of the wind band repertoire and the inclusion of musical traditions historically othered in classical spaces.

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An active guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator, Dr. Lake maintains an extensive national and international schedule, appearing at honor bands, festivals, and conferences in more than thirty states as well as Canada, including adjudication appearances for Music Fest Canada's Finales Nationales and the Ontario Provincial Band Festival. He has presented at the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic, College Band Directors National Association Conferences, National Association for Music Education Conference, Texas Music Educators Association Conference, and numerous state and regional conferences.

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Dr. Lake's presentations and guest lectures, delivered at venues ranging from state music educators' conferences to universities including NYU, Penn State, the University of Michigan, and the University of Illinois, center on a consistent set of throughlines: reimagining rehearsal technique and expressive gesture, building a philosophy of programming and repertoire selection grounded in social impact and relevance, and confronting race, representation, and equity in music education directly and without euphemism. This body of work includes recurring frameworks he has developed and refined over multiple years, among them "When Notation Runs Out," "Evaluating Artistic Relevance through Social Impact," and "Fluid Musicianship," alongside sustained keynote and panel work on diversifying curricula, culturally responsive pedagogy, and building anti-racist ensemble environments.

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Dr. Lake is co-author of Instrumental Music Education: Teaching with the Musical and Practical in Harmony (4th ed., Routledge, 2024), alongside Evan Feldman, Ari Contzius, Mitchell Lutch, Kasia Bugaj, and Frank L. Battisti, and his scholarship additionally includes contributions to Teaching Instrumental Music: Concert Hall to Rock Stage, Disruption to Discovery: Music Teacher Educators' Stories of Pandemic Teaching and Visionary Futures, and articles in Teaching Music. He is a consortium partner and commissioning conductor for new works by composers including James Lee III, Andrea Reinkemeyer, Will Healy, Marie Douglas, Hilary Purrington, Nkeiru Okoye, William Grant Still, Omar Thomas, and Jack Stamp, and has led reference recordings for C. Alan Publications.

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His leadership and artistic work have been recognized through numerous grants and honors, including ArtsFairfax Operating Support Grants, the Dolly Vogt Grant Award, a $50,000 Anti-Racist Collaboration Grant at George Mason University, multiple American Prize finalist distinctions, and institutional awards for inclusive leadership and teaching excellence.

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Dr. Lake serves as National Vice President for Professional Relations for Kappa Kappa Psi, National Honorary Band Fraternity, for which he also conceptualized and launched the fraternity's inaugural Intercollegiate Jazz Band, a fully instrumented 21-piece big band selected through a national competitive audition process that drew 125 applicants from across the United States. He holds leadership and advisory roles with the College Band Directors National Association, National Association for Music Education, United Sound, and the Institute for Composer Diversity, and is a co-founder of I SEE YOU: Affirming Representation in Classical Music, an organization dedicated to increasing representation, mentorship, and access across the music profession.