While still in New York, she met her future husband Irving Williams on a blind date in Manhattan; suitingly, they enjoyed a live symphonic performance followed by dinner.

[2] With the influence of her parents, Williams took part in frequent visitations to classical performances and concerts within New York.

Williams also obtained a Bachelor's and master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music,[1] studying under Wayne Barlow, Vittorio Giannini, Ralph Shapey, Stefan Wolpe, Vladimir Ussachevsky, and Roman Haubenstock-Ramati.

From the Oxford Press describing one of the many pieces performed at the NDM concert series in 1967: “The first event of the festival was at the same time the last in the season of New Dimensions in Music, the series with which for five years now Joan Franks Williams has made Seattle increasingly aware of the musical present.

Outstanding on this occasion was Suderburg's sensitive "Entertainments for Violin and Cello," invitingly entitled Chamber Music I.

Each movement, notably the second, demonstrated with unusual clarity that music does not have to have a tonic and a dominant to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

These concert programs included music specifically written to feature audience participation; an element that had influenced her compositional works greatly.

Several of her works incorporate acting, improvisation, and staging such as Shimshon Hagibor, a ‘mini comic melodrama written in 1975 (translates to Samson the Hero/the Mighty).