Welles Still studied Music Education at the Ithaca College School of Music where he learned trumpet with James Ode, theory with Malcom Lewis (whose compositions the SSO has played) and conducting with Pamela Gearhart. After obtaining a Bachelor’s, then Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering at Cornell, he settled in the Washington, D.C. area where he played in several ensembles, and arranged hymns for wind ensembles at his church which is where he met his late wife April in 1988.
April Still taught herself piano, guitar, drawing, painting, and writing while growing up in the Washington, D.C. area. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Christian Education from Baptist Bible College in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania and taught Christian School in College Park, Maryland while earning a Master’s Degree in Education from Western Maryland College. She married Welles in 1991, and continued to teach until Welles’ job moved them to Harford County where they met Sheldon Bair and the Susquehanna Symphony.
As part of their annual Christmas celebration, Welles and April would decorate their house with roughly 4,000 nutcrackers. In 2015, April wrote a song about nutcrackers and the Bible which she entitled “The Wooden Soldier Boy.” Welles lost April to Lymphoma in December of 2020. Welles set April’s melody for Orchestra in 2022. The Susquehanna Symphony graciously consented to give Welles’ setting its world in its December 7th Concert.
