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My Beloved English Conductor John Wilson’s Concert Dates 27 January – 04 August, 2024 Now That Intermusica Has Ceased Publishing His Schedule

Since John’s management has long ago ditched his site johnwilsonconductor.com I went over to Bachtrack to find this info, and will probably end up going there and elsewhere evermore for more info on my bonny lad’s—w or w/o his Sinfonia of London—performances. (I also have John on Google Alert, plus I donate to the Royal College and the Royal Academy to get their email newsletters, plus I follow the Sinfonia and RTE on Facebook…plus if he’s scheduled to play movie music somewhere I can get that info from Juliet Rózsa…)

Know why I like this picture? ‘Cause there’s a devil face in the red vainly trying to get at my beloved through the impenetrable white light of my love. So there, John. I told you The Queen of Heaven had her eye on you

UPDATE! Some kind soul in the UK (probably my travelling writer friend Helen Ducal, and if it is you, Helen, thanks!) subscribed me a few days ago to the John Wilson & Sinfonia of London website, which promptly sent me the ballot ClassicFM put out for best classical recordings of 2023. So okay, I voted for his Vaughan Williams but NOT his compleat Oklahoma! out of respect for the memory of my old boss, Rouben Mamoulian, who John—prompted I’m sure by the BBC—saw fit to throw a little shade on when he conducted R&H back in 2010. (John’s still my guy, though. I’m sooo used to snarky artistic types.) So I’ll probably be getting the SoL schedule as they know it. But I still have to hunt up his other appearances.

The dates link to the ticket sites. The other highlights link to available recordings and YT appearances.

Sat 27 Jan 2024 19:30
Sheldonian Theatre
Oxford, UK
Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra
Leonard Elschenbroich (cello)

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Fri 09 Feb 2024 19:30
Royal Academy of Music
London, UK
RAM Symphony Orchestra
Kasparas Mikužis (piano)

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Fri 01 Mar 2024 19:30
National Concert Hall
Dublin, IE
National Symphony Orchestra
Peter Moore (trombone)

  • Lily Boulanger: D’un matin de printemps which my beloved conducted the RAM in last October
  • Joe Chindamo: Ligeia [Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra] the European premiere of this Australian composer’s work
  • Gustav Holst: The Planets op.32 (John-NYOGB)

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Fri 19 Apr 2024 19:30
Usher Hall
Edinburgh, UK
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano)

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Sat 20 Apr 2024 19:30
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
Glasgow, UK
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano)

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09 Jun – 28 Jul 2024
Glyndebourne
Lewes, East Sussex UK

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Fri 26 Jul 2024 19:30
Concert Hall
Snape Maltings, UK
Sinfonia of London
Charlie Lovell-Jones (violin)

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Sun 04 Aug 2024 19:00
BBC Proms 21
The Royal Albert Hall
London, UK
Sinfonia of London

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John Wilson Conducts the Sinfonia of London, Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra in Richard Strauss’s “Metamorphosen” and Gives Me a Perfect Screenshot, 23 October 2020

I don’t know what I did to please the gods but on one October morning in 2020, somehow, I took a perfect screenshot of John conducting, while watching the (UK time) 7:30pm performance of the Royal Academy of Music (Finzi, Strauss). “Metamorphosen” is from his new album on Chandos.

Screening Room, SF 1979

No kidding, I get a thrill when John gives his orchestra that “I mean business” look. Above: John conducting the Sinfonia of London in Strauss’s “Metamorphosen” (Chandos, 2022).

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Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Greensleeves” Conducted by Sir John Barbirolli and Some Natter Between My Beloved John Wilson and Edward Seckerson; Plus Monty Python, Round the Horne and Polari

From June 2023. Sorry for my shaky handwriting but while listening to this I had a fantasy that gave me the giggles: John being interviewed by my favorite ohne palones—prime purveyors of the gay-gypsy-theatrical patois called polari—Julian and Sandy. Played of course by the inimitable Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams on Round the Horne. (This more-than-usual musical episode of Kenneth Horne’s 1967 radio show also includes Rambling Syd Rumpo, the Fraser Hayes 4 singing off-key not on purpose, and the screamingly funny takeoff sketch, “Young Horne with a Man”.)

Now John, John / Glorious John, I know that you know, and I know that you know that I know, that my long-distance lovemaking to you is being observed by a few; not many, just a few. So this rundown is for them, love:

In this very-recently posted pod chat with London-based culture maven Edward Seckerson, John talks about his idol, conductor Sir John Barbirolli; von Karajan; Leonard Bernstein; French romantic music of the early 20th century; conducting at Glyndebourne; reviving the Sinfonia of London; winning that BBC thingie for his Korngold Symphony (and confirming what I surmised in my review re his “austere” sound vs “chocolate sauce”); his other Korngold recording, the violin concerto, also with son vieil ami Andrew Haveron; Richard Rodney Bennett‘s compositional journey of self-discovery; and what we’re all waiting for, what’s up with The John Wilson Orchestra (seems like that psychic flash I had in April 2020 has proven true).

Here are the main points I took away from this podcast: “What I do try to do as a conductor is carry my sound around with me… It’s almost—I don’t really feel comfortable talking about because you know music is basically a doing thing and not a talking thing… My deepest musical creed is wrapped up with how an orchestra sounds…” Which pretty much confirms what I’ve suspected all this time about him.

John, fire of my loins, I respect your process.

Now, as heard on Monty Python:

Fantasia on “Greensleeves”
Ralph Vaughan Williams, composer
Barbirolli Conducts English String Music
RCA, 1963 first issue
The Sinfonia of London
John Barbirolli, conductor

23 JUNE 2020 UPDATE: Here’s Barbirolli again from that same album conducting Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia from a Theme by Thomas Tallis, which my beloved John Wilson will be conducting The Phiharmonia Orchestra in, in an online concert on 17 July.

EXTRA! Here are 2 interviews with John from BBC 2 Radio: one (8 min long) from 24 April 2016 with Michael Ball, and one (4 min long) from 4 November 2013 with Steve Wright.

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Adam Pounds Symphony No.3, Inspired by the Farkakte Lockdown and Dedicated to My Beloved John Wilson and His Sinfonia of London

From February 2023: The three composers whose works appear on this album are interconnected—Ravel was a mentor to Lennox Berkeley, and Berkeley to Pounds.

Adam Pounds studied privately with Berkeley in London during the late 1970s, and in his own music has perpetuated the firm commitment of the two earlier composers to clarity and accessibility in everything they wrote.* His Third Symphony was written in 2021 and is a response to the national [UK] lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Pounds states that the piece captures the ‘sadness, humour, determination and defiance’ which everyone faced at this time—not least musicians. Scored for relatively modest orchestral forces, the work is dedicated to Sinfonia of London and John Wilson, who give the work its world première recording.

*I’ve read this twice, and I still don’t know what the hell it means.

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Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé Now in the Hands of My Beloved John Wilson

From November 2023. As promised by John in “My Beloved Conductor John Wilson’s Lockdown Listening List: Keely Smith, Teddy Wilson, Ravel, Walton, Elgar, Brahms, Ireland, Debussy, Peter Ackroyd; Plus Yusef Lateef”: Once it became apparent that we would all be spending our days at home, I decided to embark on a project I had been putting off for years: correcting all of the many thousands of errors in Ravel’s masterpiece, Daphnis et Chloe. I soon became thoroughly absorbed in this rather epic task and ended up completing a brand new edition of the whole ballet which I will be recording next year for Chandos.

Well, here it is. Very promising indeed. (Thousands, huh?)

Part 01 // Part 02 // Part 03 // Part 04 // Part 05 // Part 06 // Part 07 // Part 08 // Part 09 // Part 10 // Part 11 // Part 12 // Part 13 // Part 14

EXTRA! John Discusses Maurice Ravel with Francois Dru!

EXTRA EXTRA! This schlemiel named Hurwitz hates this recording and loathes John. “Of course it’s sexless,” he fumes. “Look who we’re dealing with!” Hilarious.

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Valentine’s Day 2024 for My Bonny Lad Across the Ocean, Conductor John Wilson

February 14. Greetings of the day, my love. This is my gift to you this year: A sexy song by Erik Satie, plus a mashup of you conducting Vaughan Williams’s “Sea” Symphony in Birmingham with the classic print by Hokusai (1760-1849), “The Great Wave off Kanagawa”, which is actually getting some likes over at my DeviantArt gallery.

Hosukai and John Wilson

Above the mashup of Hosukai + John conducting Vaughan Williams’s “Sea” Symphony, find counter-tenor Yoshikazu Mera’s exquisite rendering of Erik Satie’s cafe melody, “Je te veux”.

Ars gratia artis. Or art for the sake of the artists*. I love you today and all days.

*Ars propter artificum.

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My Bonny John Wilson Conducts the Orchestre de Lyon for the 2023/24 New Year

Well, well, this sounds exciting. Thanks, Juliet Rózsa!

Screening Room, SF 1979

Above: From the 1940 film The Thief of Bagdad, “The Love of the Princess”.

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My Beloved John Wilson Conducts The John Wilson Orchestra in a Swingin’ Christmas on BBC2, Christmas Day 2010

With singers Anna-Jane Casey, Seth MacFarlane, and Curtis Stigers. Mike Lovatt solos on the trumpet. Plus brazen hussy shimmy alert. Whoever would stifle that shimmy in years to come, my bonny, would stifle your spirit.

Above: The FULL 1h23m audio of the BBC’s Swingin’ Christmas With the John Wilson Orchestra, 2010. Big Band medley selections are listed below. Find the (incomplete) show on YT here, or watch the longer version (with a less clear picture) below. To my regular readers: Changed the picture to show how handsome John was, in a limey weed kind of way, back when he was in his late 30s. He’s not a limey weed anymore but I love him more than ever, now that I’m getting a fuller sense of his musical life.

For the Big Band medley: “Skyliner” – Barnet / Charlie Barnet; “Take the A Train” – Billy Strayhorn and vocalist Joya Sherrill / Duke Ellington; “Let’s Dance” – Gregory Stone (based on von Weber’s “Invitation to the Dance”, orchestrated by Hector Berlioz) / Benny Goodman; “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” – Irving Berlin / Ray Noble; “Begin the Beguine” – Cole Porter / Artie Shaw; “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You” – Ned Washington and George Bassman / Tommy Dorsey; “Midnight Sun” – Hampton and Sonny Burke / Lionel Hampton; “You Made Me Love You” – Monaco and McCarthy / Harry James; “Moonlight Serenade” – Miller / Glenn Miller; “Peanut Vendor” – Moisés Simons / Stan Kenton; “Woodchoppers Ball” – Joe Bishop / Woody Herman; “One O’Clock Jump” – Count Basie / Count Basie.

This is the kind of music ID-ing I used to do when I was 18 and a night solfeggist at ASCAP, John.

Composer Andrew Cottee is the show’s orchestrator-arranger.

The ENTIRE 1h23m 2010 BBC Swingin’ Christmas With the John Wilson Orchestra is available to view here (thanks, Jayne Anne Strutt!)

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Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances Played by the Royal College of Music, Conducted by My Beloved Alumnus John Wilson 2013; John’s 2023 Interview on Marquee; Plus The Pretenders at The Glasshouse 24 Feb 2024!

Recorded on 7 November 2013 in the Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall at the Royal College of Music in London.

John Wilson RCM Rachmaninov.jpgAbove John: Symphonic Dances by Sergei Rachmaninov played by the orchestra of the Royal College of Music

My beloved John Wilson returns to the Royal College of Music to conduct the RCM Symphony Orchestra in Rachmaninov’s orchestral work in three movements. The last major orchestra composition completed by Rachmaninov, the suite is based around motifs found in Russian ecclesiastical music.

NEW! John’s 4-Part 2023 Video Interview on Marquee TV

EXTRA! John’s own “First Music” as Mentioned in His Interviews

EXTRA EXTRA! Another Love Song Just for My Bonny Lad Because The Pretenders Are Playing at The Glasshouse, 24 February Next Year

Don’t get me wrong
If I’m acting so distracted
I’m thinking about the fireworks
That go off when you smile

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My 2nd Anniversary of Being In Love with John Wilson, Royal College of Music Alumnus, Who Conducts His Alma Mater’s Symphony Orchestra in 2018, and the Sinfonia of London in 2022, in Ravel’s “La valse”

From 4 May, 2020. For two years, longing for my beloved John Wilson has impinged on my usual output of actual writing, which once dealt mostly with The Assassinations+the occult and I have got to channel that particular energy somewhere…

Now, on the second anniversary of The Day I Fell In Love With John Wilson, what should I stumble upon but this video of the Royal College of Music playing Ravel conducted by my beloved alumnus (1990-94).

RCM Symphony John Wilson.jpgMaurice Ravel described his work, written in 1919: “Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished. The clouds gradually scatter: one sees at letter A an immense hall peopled with a whirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth at the fortissimo letter B. Set in an imperial court, about 1855.” In the accompanying podcast bonny John asserted that “La valse” is about social disintegration. Another reason for me to get into his head. Above: Audio of John conducting the Sinfonia of London in this piece for Chandos (2022).

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My First Music: “Dahil Sa Iyo” and My Sentimental Devotion to Bonny John Wilson, Conductor

If you could, my bonny John Wilson, imagine me wearing a maria clara (like great-grandmother Aberin below) and you wearing a barong, I’d be singing you this song:

Sa buhay ko’y labis
Ang hirap at pasakit, ng pusong umiibig
Mandi’y wala ng langit
At ng lumigaya, hinango mo sa dusa
Tanging ikaw sinta, ang aking pag-asa.

Dahil sa iyo, nais kong mabuhay
Dahil sa iyo, hanggang mamatay
Dapat mong tantuin, wala ng ibang giliw
Puso ko’y tanungin, ikaw at ikaw rin

Dahil sa iyo, ako’y lumigaya
Pagmamahal, ay alayan ka
Kung tunay man ako, ay alipinin mo
Ang lahat sa buhay ko, dahil sa iyo

“Dahil Sa Iyo”
Mike Velarde Jr music (1938), Tom Spinoza, lyrics
Cora and Santos Beloy, vocalists
Tri-World Records (1964)

Great-Grandmother Aberin 1.jpgMy mother’s lola, my great-grandmother, the spitting image of my mother the way Georgiana Drew is the spitting image of Drew Barrymore and I’m the spitting image of my dad. I have no documentation for my assertion—my gran’s house and possessions were completely destroyed during the Japanese Occupation. But whenever we came across this picture in the media—in an article in Time, for example—my mom would always point her out and tell me the story of how my great-grandfather came over from Ireland and, upon discovering he was meeting fellow Catholics in a sea of Asians, stayed, changed his name from O’Brien to Abérin, and married the local beauty. How Van Camp found her is anybody’s guess.

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John Wilson and His Sinfonia of London Tour UK, Including His Home Town of Gateshead, with Hollywood’s Greatest Hits, 04 – 15 November 2023

Above: John’s own overture, “Hooray for Hollywood” for his 2011 appearance at the Royal Albert.

John’s pop fans in Britain have nothing to worry about—all the goodness of The John Wilson Orchestra (1994-2019) is now squeezed into his new/old/new group, the Sinfonia of London in their brand-new “Hollywood’s Greatest Hits” tour. Thank Kennedy Street Productions, who brought Barry Manilow and Gladys Knight to UK’s shores, for this shrewd spectacular run aimed at the 2023 Holiday Season. Now we’ll hear the rest of the movie music John’s been transcribing all these years.

More info to come as I find it. I understand since 2 December 2022 tickets have been flying off the box office shelves.

Glad you asked. Here’s the Sinfonia’s jam-packed “Hollywood’s Greatest Hits” tour schedule:

Sat 4 November 2023 19:00

The Anvil Theatre
Basingstoke UK
Get Tickets Here

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Sun 5 November 2023 19:00

Brighton Dome
Brighton and Hove UK
Get Tickets Here

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Mon 6 November 2023 19:30

Royal Albert Hall
London UK
Get Tickets Here

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Tue 7 November 2023 19:00

St David’s Hall
Cardiff UK
Get Tickets Here

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Thu 9 November 2023 19:30

Symphony Hall
Birmingham UK
Get Tickets Here

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Sat 11 November 2023 19:30

Sage Gateshead
Gateshead UK
Get Tickets Here

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Sun 12 November 2023 19:30

Philharmonic Hall
Liverpool UK
Get Tickets Here

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Mon 13 November 2023 19:30

Royal Concert Hall
Glasgow UK
Get Tickets Here

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Tue 14 November 2023 19:30

Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall
Nottingham UK
Get Tickets Here

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Wed 15 November 2023 19:30

The Bridgewater Hall
Manchester UK
Get Tickets Here

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Things I Did for Love of Geordie John Wilson, 1: Watched Get Carter (British MGM 1971, Mike Hodges Director) and Sarah Millican; and Listened to, But Didn’t Watch, The Orville

This is all to do with my beloved John Wilson, Conductor being from Gateshead. Except for that Seth MacFarlane show.

Sarah Millican first. Tried listening to this fast-talking comedienne from nearby South Shields the middle of 2019 but could not keep up with her pace or her accent. Later I started watching old episodes of Auf Wiedersehn Pet, The Likely Lads, Byker Grove (which starred BGT presenters Ant & Dec when they were kids), and now one of my favorite shows ever on television, Our Friends In the North (all episodes here) etc etc but they’re just so…masculine, you know? Which I suspect probably pretty much characterizes Geordie culture anyway… So I started alternating watching that show with When the Boat Comes In, which was more successful for me, as the estimable Northumbria-born actress Jean Heywood provided a good model of what a feminine northeast accent sounds like. After her it was a snap to follow Millican.

Second, The Orville, Seth MacFarlane’s Star Trek-like TV series. Like the 70s folksinger says, “I’m a stoner, I’m a trekker, I’m a young sky walker…” So yeh, I’d be interested in watching this show just to see if it measures up to the standards of my youth. Unfortunately, none of MacFarlane’s (post-Family Guy) projects ever sound interesting enough for me to overcome my intense personal dislike for him. So…maybe later. I did, however, listen to the show’s theme music, which was written by Andrew Cottee, the same young man who wrote some arrangements for The John Wilson Orchestra over in England. The theme does everything expected of it.

Third, Get Carter, starring Michael Caine and the City of Newcastle. Made this movie last on my list because it deserves two paragraphs, being the British noir classic that it is…

Sidebar: As we all now know from film school, existentialism is the engine of noir, which means that petty details like Michael Caine speaking in a thick Cockney accent* when his character’s supposed to be from Newcastle-upon-Tyne oughtn’t to matter to the sophisticated auditor. But I had a problem. I’m sorry. Three years ago I wouldn’t have cared, one Brit being the same as any other. Then I fell in love with John Wilson, a Low Fell lad, and individuality suddenly became a very important thing to me.

The Movie Overall: Not quite sure why the filmmakers transplanted novelist Ted Lewis’s story from his original setting in Lincolnshire (Lewis’s birthplace), to Tyneside, but since it’s the classic story of the Anti-Hero’s Revenge, which works anytime, anyplace, it does fine here. Michael Caine’s a little podgy but quick with his reflexes and still a treat for the ladies. Lots of sex and violence, lots of local atmosphere, local faces, and landmarks like Tyne Bridge, the Newcastle Racecourse and, of course, the carpark across the Tyne River.

The Carpark in Gateshead Scene: By a stroke of luck Get Carter was just streamed on Criterion so I watched the entire movie, then to make sure, watched the carpark scene twice more in order to understand why it so sticks in the mind. Because it does, you know, even though I’m not a fan of movies like this. I guess it’s because there’s rather a high elegance to this scene that contrasts with all the mundaneness and phony poshness around it… Very arty, but a genuine statement. Or maybe it’s just because I like watching Michael Caine get all riled up.

EXTRA! Mark Steel’s in Gateshead. Say no more.

The now torn-down carpark at Trinity Square in Gateshead in this famous scene was a dreary piece of English Brutalist architecture that, according to its creator, was never meant to stand the test of time anyway. That’s the theme to The Orville above.

*I understand that a stage version of Get Carter was recently performed in Newcastle, with Carter’s accent spoken correctly.

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My First Music: Soames Rapes Irene in The Forsyte Saga (BBC, 1967); “Halcyon Days” from Eric Coates’s Three Elizabeths Suite Played by the BBCPO and Conducted By My Excellent John Wilson

I was twelve when The Forsyte Saga was first shown on American TV and I thought it was the coolest series ever.* It was about a large, rich and, though unconnected, influential family living in late-capitalist England circa 1879, who keep getting into pretty heated conflicts with each other—which at the bottom are really about, more or less, the value of art and the inner life vs commerce—all the while being beautifully attired and beautifully well-spoken. Hearing this royal fanfare “Halcyon Days” that opened the show was enough to get me all excited with anticipation on a Sunday night, but it wasn’t until last year around May when I finally discovered the composer of the piece, Eric Coates, plus the rest of this ravishing movement, when I fell in love with conductor John Wilson and developed a raging need to get close to the music he’s close to.

Screening Room, SF 1979Above: Above Soames played by Eric Porter—The Man of Property, Noted Art Collector, and about as Mr Wrong as you can get—who mistook his wife for a soulless mannequin and, in novelist John Galsworthy’s sardonic words, “asserted his marital rights and acted like a man” in this scene, in which the BBC made shocking good use of Nyree Dawn Porter’s lovely embonpoint: My gorgeous, wondrous John Wilson leads the BBC Philharmonic in Coates’s “Halcyon Days”.

My beloved John conducted this 29 March, 2022 in Salford, as part of a program devoted exclusively to the music of prolific BBC composer, Eric Coates. It was glorious.

Here’s a remembrance of Nyree Dawn Porter and The Forsyte Saga in The Guardian reprinted in FB, including my protestation over the use of the word “frigid”.

*In fact it got me to read the entire cycle of nine novels the series was based on; finished them when I was thirteen. Dinny Cherrell’s my favorite character.

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