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 On Wednesday, November 4, 1959, David Wilson raised his baton to direct his first concert with the Slough Philharmonic Society, and he has been its conductor and Director of Music ever since. The programme on that evening included Copland’s ‘Appalachian Spring’ and the Adagio from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, a sign that a degree of adventurousness would be a feature of the Society’s choice of music over the next forty five years.
At the age of eleven he made his musical debut as a pianist on the radio programme ‘Children’s’ Hour’. He was educated at Maidstone Grammar School where he played as soloist in piano concertos by Bach and Beethoven with the excellent school orchestra, in which he played timpani and later the bassoon. His studies on the organ led him to become organist and choirmaster at a local church where he directed his first concert, a performance of Stainer’s ‘Crucifixion’. Despite these activities, he had a strong desire to study forestry, but music won in the end and he studied piano, organ and bassoon at the Royal College of Music, the latter with the great Archie Camden. David spent much of his time at the College in the opera theatre where he worked as a repetiteur, and which bred in him a lifelong love of accompanying.
His studies were interrupted by National Service which he spent playing the bassoon in the R.A.F. Central Band. After a year at Reading University he was appointed Director of Music at Slough Grammar School, and became conductor of the Beaconsfield Choral Society, and organist at Slough Parish Church, as well as playing widely as a professional bassoonist, honing his conducting skills observing the conductors under whom he served, including the young Colin Davis. It was at this time that he first became involved with the Slough Phil. by playing bassoon under John Wellingham, the then conductor. In 1959 he moved to Bracknell to become Director of Music at Ranelagh School and in this same year he was appointed conductor of the Slough Phil. For a brief period he rehearsed both the choir and the orchestra, but a partnership was soon forged with our former chorus master, Ken Weller, who then rehearsed the choir until shortly before his death last year.
At Ranelagh he gradually built up a strong choral tradition and over a period of 25 years up to his retirement in 1997 a wide range of operas and choral works were performed, including the Verdi ‘Requiem’ and Elgar’s ‘The Dream of Gerontius’, always accompanied by the Slough Philharmonic Orchestra. As a celebration of his teaching career, the combined school choirs of over 300 students together with soloists from the ENO sang in a concert performance of the opera ‘Carmen’. In 1996 David Wilson was awarded the “Individual Contribution to the Arts” by Slough Borough Council. The orchestra continues to go from strength to strength.
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