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John Wilson

Conductor
Artistic Director, Sinfonia of London

  • John Wilson is in demand at the highest level across the globe, having conducted many of the world’s finest orchestras over the past 30 years. In 2018 he relaunched Sinfonia of London: described as ‘the most exciting thing currently happening on the British orchestral scene’ (The Arts Desk), Wilson and the Sinfonia’s much-anticipated BBC Proms debut in 2021 was praised as ‘truly outstanding’ (The Guardian) with its ‘revelatory music-making’ (The Times). They are now highly sought-after across the UK, returning to the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh Festival and London’s Barbican Centre among other festivals and venues this season.

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  • Wilson’s large and varied discography with Sinfonia of London has received near-universal critical acclaim, and in the autumn of 2023 they will release their 17th album in five years. Their recordings have earned several awards including, for three successive years, the BBC Music Magazine Award in the Orchestral category for the Korngold Symphony in F sharp (2020), Respighi Roman Trilogy (2021) and Dutilleux Le Loup (2022) recordings.  The Observer described the Respighi recording as “Massive, audacious and vividly played” and The Times declared it one of the three “truly outstanding accounts of this trilogy” of all time, after those by Toscanini (1949) and Muti (1984).


    Born in Gateshead, Wilson studied composition and conducting at the Royal College of Music where, in 2011, he was made a Fellow. In March 2019, John Wilson was awarded the prestigious ISM Distinguished Musician Award for his services to music and in 2021 was appointed Henry Wood Chair of Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music.

    23/24 season, 258 words. Not to be altered without permission.

Performances

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Livestreams and Broadcasts

Sinfonia of London | BBC Proms | August 2023
Boulanger, Rachmaninoff and Walton
Click to watch on BBC iPlayer (UK only)


Sinfonia of London | Aldeburgh Festival | June 2023
Walton, Delius, Britten and Elgar
Click to watch on Marquee TV


Sinfonia of London | Aldeburgh Festival | June 2023
Dukas, Sally Beamish, Respighi and Rachmaninoff
Click to watch on Marquee TV


OperaGlass Works | 2020
Britten The Turn of the Screw
Click to watch on Marquee TV


Glyndebourne | June 2019
Massenet Cendrillon
Click to watch on Marquee TV

[Wilson] has an unfussy but telling elegance of gesture – no sweaty ‘conductor’s ecstasy’ for him – which had surprisingly huge effects, like throwing the stage light-switches in a theatre; a single flick of that forefinger, and we were flooded in aural dazzlement and colour and magic.

Telegraph

John Wilson is the most exciting British conductor since Simon Rattle. […] his Sinfonia of London sets the gold standard – an orchestra of generals that takes the unfashionable, the obscure, the overlooked, and makes it unmissable.

Sunday Times

As we’ve come to expect from Wilson and his Sinfonia, this was an evening compounded of excitement and insight, with terrifically incisive playing across the board. Wilson’s approach to the Enigma Variations…was an interpretation of marvellous freshness; bittersweet, unsentimental and wonderfully human; the most engaging account of the work I’ve heard for some time.

Guardian

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Intermusica represents John Wilson worldwide

Stephen Lumsden
Chief Executive
+44 20 7608 9900

Leyla Güneş
Orchestral
+44 20 7608 9927
lgunes@intermusica.com

Julia Maynard
Opera
+44 20 7608 9902
jmaynard@intermusica.com

Charles Leeson
Assistant Artist Manager
+44 20 7608 9901
cleeson@intermusica.com

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Chansonnier

HK Gruber

Counter-tenor

Tim Mead

Harpsichord

Richard Egarr

Piano accompanist

Roger Vignoles