John Wilson (conductor)

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John Wilson (born 1972 in Tyneside, Newcastle) is a British conductor, arranger and musicologist and specialises in music for the small and big screens, as well as light music.

[edit] Education

Born in the north of England, he studied composition and conducting at the Royal College of Music, and during this time won the Tagore Gold Medal for outstanding academic excellence.

[edit] Working life so far

In addition to conducting a number of British-based orchestras, Wilson is also an arranger and orchestrator and has produced a number of orchestrations for film, radio and television. In 2000 he orchestrated Sir Richard Rodney Bennett's incidental music for a BBC production of Gormenghast. This scoring won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Film Score. Wilson orchestrated and conducted Howard Goodall's score for the 2002 BBC film The Gathering Storm about the life of Winston Churchill.

Wilson's interest in historical film scores has led to his restoring a number of classic film scores and is currently reconstructing the orchestrations of all the major MGM musicals. In 2004 Wilson was appointed the music director for the Hollywood feature film Beyond the Sea, a biopic of the life of Bobby Darin starring Kevin Spacey.