Beneficiary Designations

Heart healthy mission strikes a chord: Musician William H. Reed plans gift in honor of mother, grandfather

From the time William H. Reed could stand up and walk, he was toddling over to the stereo and pressing the button that would cause the record player to start. Even at that young age, he was in love with music.

His adoptive mom, Jane Reed, knew she had to get him involved with music somehow. She called a local university’s music department for advice.

“Somebody there told her to get me started on violin lessons, because the violin came in different sizes,” William said. A violin teacher they knew through church took three-year-old William on as a student and soon, he was performing with her studio’s troupe in and around Taylor County, Texas.

“We used to perform at a flea market every month. We’d perform fiddle tunes as well as classical music,” he said with a smile in his voice. “When you grow up in Texas, everybody has to learn to fiddle.”

The violins graduated in size as William grew older, and today he has performed around the world as not only a violinist, but as a vocalist, mostly in operas, and as a conductor. Some of his conducting credits include guest conducting the London Classical Soloists, the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra in the Czech Republic, and two Puccini operas – Tosca and La Boheme – with the Opera and Philharmonic Society of Bourgas in Bulgaria.

“I think the love of music starts with your connection to your own emotions as well as the emotions the music conveys to you, personally," William said, “but once I received an education in music, it became more about analyzing the music and deciphering why the composer made the choices he or she did. To this day, I often wonder what makes each composer choose everything they do when writing a piece, from the instruments they selected to the way the music was written. It’s like a puzzle, and you’re constantly discovering how it is all put together to make such a beautiful creation.”

William found his music career challenging and fulfilling, but it wasn’t without its stress, which he believes was a contributor to the high blood pressure he manages today.

“Unfortunately, if you have a career as a musician, that is your life. It takes up a lot of your time to prepare for performances and rehearsals,” he said. “You live, breathe, and eat music if you are to be quite accomplished, let alone proficient, in such a field!”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when live performances were put on hold, professional musicians, including William, became unemployed. He spent that time acting as a caregiver for his mother, who was born with osteogenesis imperfecta. When she passed away, William began to pursue a new career, and he is currently studying website and app development. He is taking full advantage of the wellness resources his college offers, including Pilates and yoga classes, to help him manage his heart health as well as his overall physical and mental wellbeing.

William has also decided to honor both his mother and her father, who both suffered from high blood pressure, by supporting the work of the American Heart Association.

He has made the Heart Association one of the beneficiaries of his retirement accounts. It’s the perfect way to memorialize the woman who led by example – as both a community volunteer and business owner – and taught William the importance of giving back to his community and the world at large.

“Anything that you do in love for other people, that is the only type of legacy which has lasted throughout history and will constantly last, into the future, as a positive force - changing the world for the better," he said. “What matters most to me is the sort of difference I am able to make in this world. If I can change somebody else’s life, they will, in turn, change somebody else’s life and so on. I encourage others to join me in this lifelong journey of living in such a way that we, collectively, work towards making this world a better place for all.”