The music of William J. Lackey has been featured at the Festival of New American Music, the First and Fourth Annual Society of Composers, Inc. National Student Conference, Music for the XXI Century Festival, Quixotic Performance Fusion and California’s Festival of the Arts. The New York Art Ensemble, the California EAR Unit, newEar, Linda Hirst- mezzo-soprano, Alan Hacker-clarinetist and Keith Michael Bohm-saxophonist, has performed his music.
Lackey is the winner of the 1998 New York Art Ensemble Young Composers Competition. He has received scholarships and fellowships to attend the Bowdoin International Summer Music Festival, Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East (Bennington, VT) and Dartington International Summer School 2002-Advanced Composition Seminar (Devon, England).
Lackey is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in music composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City's Conservatory of Music and Dance where he also received a Master of Music in composition. While at UMKC he has studied composition with James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Zhou Long and Paul Rudy.
Lackey received a Bachelor of Music degree in theory/composition from Christopher Newport University where his primary composition teacher was Jennifer Margaret Barker. He has also received training at New York University and the Walden School’s Teachers Training Institute.
Additional composition teachers include Errollyn Wallen, Samuel Adler, Stephen Jaffe, Dinu D. Ghezzo, Robert Rowe and Justin Dello Joio.
Currently he is Production Coordinator and serves on the board of directors for newEar Kansas City's Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. Lackey is a composition graduate teaching assistant at the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. He has also held the positions of Development Assistant and Staff Librarian with the Virginia Symphony.