Anyroad, like a good Dr Watson I have compiled a list:
Listen to John’s new orchestra the SINFONIA OF LONDON here
JOHN WILSON – HIS LIMITS (Updated September 2021)
Knowledge of/affinity for/talent with:
- English Light Music – Affinity natural; knowledge vast; repopularized Angela Morley, Arnold Bax, Edward German, Eric Coates, Robert Farnon, etc etc etc; recorded over a dozen albums of English light music with Naxos, Chandos etc; wrote arrangement of Fantasia on British Sea Songs for Last Night At the Proms, 2003; creditably conducted Sir Arthur Sullivan’s “Overture di Ballo” (audio download here; but you have to see my darling conductor in action at the Royal Festival Hall in 2011 on my YT playlist here. The BBC told him to bring out his personality and so he did my bonny, kind of)
- English Light Music, Gilbert & Sullivan Division – Creditably conducted Yeoman of the Guard at the Royal Festival Hall in 2009 and Ruddigore in 2010 (my favorite G&S, as “Basingstoke” was the safeword my boyfriend and I used during bondage games); creditably (I’m sure) conducted a concert performance of Trial by Jury with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, spring 2019
- Classic Repertoire – Re-formed the Sinfonia of London and recorded with them Korngold’s symphony and violin concerto; conducted RAM Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s 6th, January 2020. Pinch-hit conducted Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony in Dublin with the RTE October 2019. Claims special affinity for Rachmaninoff: Creditably conducted Rach’s 3rd in Birmingham 1 Dec 2021. Recorded so far 3 albums in a set of Copland, which doesn’t interest me right now. Creditably conducted Beethoven’s Pastoral as well as Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with the RTE Orchestra in Dublin. But Mahler. Yeh, I’d like John to eventually work up to Mahler’s 2nd (which TONALLY is up his alley). Only by the time he does get to it years and years from now I’ll probably be dead…
- Classic Repertoire, English Romantics Division – Creditably conducted Walton, Delius, Elgar, Britten; deep affinity for Ralph Vaughan Williams (it’s that Sehnsucht, my bonny)
- Opera – Creditably conducted Madame Butterfly for the 2016 Glyndebourne tour; creditably conducted Porgy and Bess fall 2018 at the English National Opera; creditably conducted Massenet’s Cendrillon at Glyndebourne, summer 2019
- Film Music – Creditably conducted a program of “British Film Music” for the 2007 Proms; transcribed by ear complete MGM “lost” movie musical scores including The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me In St Louis and Singin’ In the Rain, resulting in 350+ (John’s count as of 2016, although his count confusingly goes up or down in successive interviews) pieces of programmable material (for the Proms, for example)—many of which are now of course part of The John Wilson Orchestra repertoire—while the complete scores are now available to orchestras worldwide for symphonic and live-to-screen concerts
- Big Band/Big Swing – In his early 20s John cut his teeth on this type of music, starting with his stints conducting his Royal College (he’s a 1994 alumnus) / Royal Academy colleagues in the fancy palm courts of the hotels Grosvenor House and Royal Park (Times music critic Clive Davis gave the young students a “golden”—John’s word—review) plus Pizza On the Park, actually a swanky cabaret, and The Boatyard, a trendy restaurant in Essex; recorded 8 dance/swing albums for Vocalion; nominated for Grammy 2006 for the soundtrack of the biopic Beyond the Sea (which is really the first time I heard The JWO but didn’t know it)
- Jazz – John has absolutely no idea what jazz is, yet recorded a thoroughly awful and dishonest album with Richard Rodney Bennett entitled Orchestral Jazz
- Broadway and The Great American Songbook – DON’T get me started here. I’m blogging about this below.
All the rest is just Cantara trying to sort out where bonny John fits into her inner life. Which as it turns out is in every nook, every cranny…
Listen to John’s new orchestra the SINFONIA OF LONDON here
- “The Story So Far, with Conductor John Wilson”
- “The Story So Far; Or, Conductor John Wilson—His Limits”
- Cantara Christopher Gives Her Beloved Conductor John Wilson Crib Notes on Todd Field’s Screen Masterpiece, Tár: Love, Teshuvah and Filipinos Will Save Western Music, Part 1
- Cantara Christopher Gives Her Beloved Conductor John Wilson Crib Notes on Todd Field’s Screen Masterpiece, Tár: Love, Teshuvah and Filipinos Will Save Western Music, Part 2
- Cantara Christopher Gives Her Beloved Conductor John Wilson Crib Notes on Todd Field’s Screen Masterpiece, Tár: Love, Teshuvah and Filipinos Will Save Western Music, Part 3
- Cantara Christopher Gives Her Beloved Conductor John Wilson Crib Notes on Todd Field’s Screen Masterpiece, Tár: Love, Teshuvah and Filipinos Will Save Western Music, Part 4
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