Richard Wilson was born in Cleveland, where he studied piano with Leonard Shure and cello with Ernst Silberstein. His first compositions (now under lock and key) date from about the age of ten and were supervised first by Roslyn Raish and then, a few years later, Howard Whitaker. At Harvard he studied composition with Robert Moevs. After graduating magna cum laude in music, he received the Frank Huntington Beebe Award, which allowed him to study abroad for one year. He worked with the Austrian pianist Friedrich Wuhner in Munich and with Moevs in Rome. Back in the United States he did further study with Moevs at Rutgers University and then joined the music faculty of Vassar College.
The composer of over seventy works in many genres, including opera, Mr. Wilson has received such recognition as the Hinrichsen Award (from the American Academy of Arts and Letters), the Stoeger Prize (from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center), the Cleveland Arts Prize (from the Women’s City club of Cleveland), a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a major commission from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation. His orchestral works have been performed by the San Francisco Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the American Symphony Orchestra, the Pro-Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Colombia, the Residentie Orkest of The Hague, and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. Conductors who have recently performed his works include Herbert Blomstedt, Imre Pallo, Luis Biava, Gerard Oskamp, Randall Craig Fleischer and Leon Botstein.
Albany Records has recently released a CD of Mr. Wilson’s complete choral music, conducted by William Appling. A previous Albany CD includes four chamber works. Also available on CRI are his piano concerto, with Blanca Uribe, and bassoon concerto, with Robert Wagner, in performances by the Pro-Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, Leon Botstein conducting.
Active as a pianist, Mr. Wilson has performed as a concerto soloist with the American Symphony Chamber Orchestra, the Residentie Orkest of The Hague, and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra.
Mr. Wilson holds the Mary Conover Mellon Chair in Music at Vassar; his is also Composer-in-Residence with the American Symphony Orchestra, for which he gives pre-concert talks.