Conductor and arranger John Wilson was born in Gateshead, Tyne & Wear, England in 1972. After graduating from Heathfield Senior High School, he attended Newcastle College and studied music. There, he conducted ensembles of many sizes (including a 96-piece orchestra for a performance of West Side Story) as well as conducting for smaller local productions. He then enrolled at the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied percussion before moving on to conducting and composition. In 2004, he became the music director for the film Beyond the Sea, which was a biopic about pop and rock vocalist Bobby Darin. Three years later, he conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra in a BBC Proms concert, returning two years later to conduct his own ensemble, the John Wilson Orchestra. More BBC Proms performances followed in 2010 and 2011, where he conducted shows celebrating MGM musicals and the work of Rodgers & Hammerstein. He also conducted a complete reconstruction of My Fair Lady during the 2012 BBC Proms. His annual appearances at the BBC Proms continued until 2019, but he decided to focus on conducting other ensembles and operas including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Glyndebourne Touring Opera, and many others. He made his debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in 2017, celebrating the music of Leonard Bernstein. John Wilson served as Principal Conductor of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra from 2014 until 2016 and then served as Associate Guest Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in 2016. Reforming the Sinfonia of London in 2018, he recorded a series of albums for the Chandos Records label. He’s also orchestrated for film, television, and radio and has spent a significant amount of time restoring classic film scores for iconic MGM productions including Wizard of Oz. John Wilson’s recorded legacy includes albums recorded with the BBC Concert Orchestra, the John Wilson Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Sinfonia of London. His critically acclaimed releases include Coates: Under the Stars (1997), Elgar: The Longed-for Light (2014), Onyx Brass Plays Fanfares (2018), Korngold : Works for Orchestra (2019), English Music for Strings (2021), Hollywood Soundstage (2022), and Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (Complete Original Score) (2023).
