Walls (b. 1963) speaks a musical language that reflects his broad exposure to classical, jazz, and popular idioms.  He received his earliest training in piano and voice in his native city, Columbus, Ohio, and completed studies in vocal/choral music education at Harding University in Arkansas.  He went on to receive a Master's and Ph.D. in composition from The University of North Texas.  Walls has studied composition with Joseph Klein, Martin Mailman, Andrew May, and Cindy McTee.  His teachers in electro-acoustic music have included Larry Austin, John Mallia, and Phillip Winsor.

Highlights of Walls’ accomplishments at North Texas include Psalm 46, a work for mixed chorus featured on a master class with Jaakko Mäntyjärvi in 2004.  Intimate Strangers, a soundscape for dancers and fixed media was presented at the 8th Annual Creative Arts Research Symposium at Texas Woman’s University in 2005, and was performed by six dancers on the university’s spring recital, DanceMakers, Too.  Walls drew from his in-depth knowledge of Italian language and literature by writing Three Sonnets by Dante Alighieri for tenor and piano.  The set was premiered by the internationally acclaimed tenor, Stephen Mark Brown, at Horchow Auditorium of the Dallas Museum of Art in 2007.  Most recently Walls completed Galileo's Eyeglass, a work for full orchestra celebrating Galileo’s discoveries of the four largest moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn in 1610.

Walls’ chamber works include Rosa: Tango, selected for performance by the Southern Methodist University String Quartet, presented on a master class with the New York-based string quartet ETHEL, and performed by a UNT quartet at the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art in 2011.  Fugal Waltz on a Row by Slonimsky (2005) for saxophone quartet has been performed three times on recitals at North Texas.  An earlier work, Autographs 1928: Four Songs for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble (1994), for ten performers, draws its texts from remembrances, wishes, and rhymes found in Walls’ maternal grandmother’s autograph book.

Walls' awards in composition include: Outstanding Music Composition Studies Graduate Student Award, the Dean’s Camerata Scholarship, the Richard and Candace Faulk Scholarship, the David M. Schimmel Memorial Scholarship, and the Lewisville Lake Symphony's Love and Immortality Project Competition.  Beyond his professional pursuits, Walls enjoys cooking Italian food and spending time with his wife, two children, family and friends, and his church.