Mark Williamson, Alston & Bird, Atlanta. (Photo: John Disney/ ALM)

R. Mark Williamson will be taking a break from his day job as an Alston & Bird tax partner on Nov. 29 to conduct the Atlanta Pops Orchestra Ensemble for the annual Christmas at Callanwolde Holiday Gala.

John Driskell Hopkins of the Zac Brown Band will be singing with the Atlanta Pops as the 30-piece orchestra performs holiday favorites like “Sleigh Ride” and “Silent Night.”

“His Grinch brings down the house,” Williamson said.

Williamson, a professional musician turned lawyer, will be playing his usual instrument, the trombone, for the second half of the show with the Joe Gransden Big Band. Nationally known jazz trombonist Wes Funderburk did the arrangements for the Christmas at Callanwolde show.

Williamson said he plays trombone with the Atlanta Pops fairly regularly, but this is his first time conducting them. The usual conductors weren't available, so they asked him. “I'm hopefully qualified. We'll find out,” he said.

Williamson worked as a musician before making the switch to law as he approached age 30, after his first child was born, and he still performs several times a month.

“I play anything and everything. Tell me when to be there and what to wear,” he said, adding that he's played everything from rap, hip-hop and klezmer to classical and sacred music.

Getting jobs in music is much the same as in law, Williamson said. “You're meeting people, trying to get a good gig, then do a good job and get another gig.”

He's been on the music scene in Atlanta for more than 20 years, since joining Alston & Bird in 1995, which helps. One of the luxuries of being established, Williamson said, is that he only “plays with musicians I really want to play with.”

In the last few years he's been busy. He toured China with The American Hollywood Film Orchestra playing movie soundtrack hits from “Mission Impossible,” “Titanic,” Star Wars” and “West Side Story.” “We did 18 shows in 17 cities in 20 days,” he said.

He's also played with Sarah McLachlan at Chastain Park Amphitheatre and Johnny Mathis at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center, as well as the Atlanta Opera and the still-swinging Glenn Miller Orchestra.

Last year Williamson made a record, “Mountain Overture,” with the Atlanta Pops and bluegrass band Balsam Range that combined orchestral and mountain sounds. “I'm really proud of it,” he said.

But the performance that he said most impressed his 25-year-old son was playing the trombone for the soundtrack of the video game  “Destiny 2,” released last year.

Law and Music Rhyme

Williamson started playing the piano at age 4 and took up the trombone at 9. He went on to earn a B.A. in brass instruments from Louisiana State University and an M.A. in brass and conducting from the University of North Texas, then landed a job with the U.S. Air Force Band.

“It was a good job for a trombone player—they have a lot of brass,” he said, adding that big-name musicians like Glenn Miller, Henry Mancini and John Williams got their start there.

Williamson's impetus in going to law school at Florida State University was to earn a more secure living after he and his wife started a family. He said he loved law school, discovering early on that practicing law is similar in key ways to playing music.

Form is a central issue for both, he said. “How do you organize either a piece of music or a legal brief so it pulls the listener or reader through it?”

The idea is to organize the legal or musical ideas so that when “you finally deliver the finished written piece or perform the piece of music, it's a seamless experience,” he said.

Legal memos or opinions for clients should be tightly constructed with an introduction, body and conclusion, he said—in the same way that a piece of music needs to have the body of the song but also “a little something at the beginning and the end.”

He added that, when he was in law school finishing up a legal paper, he'd listen to some Mozart, then write the last draft.

Williamson, who heads the wealth planning and exempt organizations team at Alston, said things can get a little hectic at the end of the year, as he juggles holiday gigs with clients wanting to do year-end tax planning—especially since he generally doesn't get a lot of advance notice for shows.

“I have fabulous clients,” he said. If a performance pops up, they schedule around it.

In both music and law, Williamson said, “Ninety percent of success is being on time and properly dressed.”

For the Christmas at Callanwolde show, Williamson, like the Pops, plans to wear formal dress. “There might be Santa hats involved,” he added.

The Christmas at Callanwolde Holiday Gala is Thursday, Nov. 29 at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, located at 980 Briarcliff Road. Tickets cost $75 each, which includes catered food, wine and beer. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the concert will play from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Holiday cocktail attire is suggested.

Proceeds benefit the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center.