CONDUCTOR EXTRAORDINAIRE:From reconstructing the lost scores of old MGM musicals to touring with his own orchestra, conductor John Wilson does things his way, he tells ARMINTA WALLACE
OHN WILSON IS perched on the edge of a sofa in a hotel in Liverpool, contemplating his life in music. All edgy energy, smart threads and shades, he looks far too young to be a conductor – any kind of conductor, let alone one with a passion for “light music” and the scores of classic musicals.
At the moment his life in music is stacking up nicely. His orchestra has just snagged a recording contract with EMI. He is principal guest conductor with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, guests on a regular basis with various ensembles around Europe and has made a movie with Kevin Spacey.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Wilson dismisses his multi-dimensional CV with a burst of rapid-fire Geordie self-deprecation. “All in a day’s work. Although I never think of it as work. I’ve always had a dual existence – dual in the eyes of some, in that they make these divisions between what they call ‘light’ music and ‘serious’ music. I never make those distinctions. I’m a conductor, and I do lots of different things. If I didn’t, I’d get bored.”
Did he always know his life would be in music? "Yeah. Always. Since I was five. I taught myself to play the piano. Did a bit of music at school. Went to the Royal College of Music in London." He looks up and grins. "I don't think there's anything else I can do. I'd be snookered." It could be a line lifted right out of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
"So what am I doing in Liverpool? Well, there's a big poster there, which you can see out the window," he says nodding across the road at Philharmonic Hall, home of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, "which is a Lerner and Loewe concert we did with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra a few weeks ago. That's Thursday. Then on Friday and Saturday I'm at Chester Festival doing the Vaughan Williams Five Tudor Portraits,which is a marvellous work for chorus and orchestra, and it's never done because it's so hard it never gets played."
The five musical portraits of characters by the 15th-century poet John Skelton are, he assures me, hilarious. “Quite ribald.” Then he’s off to Newcastle to do the Lerner and Loewe concert again in his home town of Gateshead – and after a brief interlude for a two-week holiday, he’ll be heading back to Dublin for a semi-staged performance of Singin’ in the Rain at the National Concert Hall.
With a cast, a narrator and the full score – which is being played, complete, for the first time ever in Dublin – this gig will be a little different to the film screenings with live orchestral accompaniment of which Wilson has been a triumphant champion. Can he explain why the latter have become so popular?
"Well, because so many people know the films," he says. "So many people were brought up on them. Singin' in the Rainis kind of embedded in your consciousness whether you're aware of it or not. And the music is so wonderful that it always makes an impression."
At the National Concert Hall, Singin' In The Rainwill be narrated by the character of Lina Lamont, the female lead who – in the movie – is in love with the character played by Gene Kelly. Most people don't know that the movie actually has a plot. Come to think of it, most people don't know the songs either, apart from the iconic title sequence, which features Kelly dancing around a lamppost with an umbrella.
"Oh, there's some great numbers from Singin' In The Rain," says Wilson. "There's Good Mornin'. There's Moses Supposes. There's You Are My Lucky Star.There's a big ballet at the end of the second act with Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse. It's full of hit tunes. Make 'Em Laugh – you know? Where Donald O'Connor runs up the wall?"
While the songs are excellent, they’re not, Wilson insists, the best thing about the show. “It’s a dance-led show, and what’s spectacular about it is the dance music.”
At the NCH, Gene Kelly’s character will be played by Paul Robinson and Donald O’Connor’s by Josh Prince.
“They’re both seasoned hoofers,” says Wilson. “Josh has just choreographed Shrek in London, he’s from New York, and Paul won an Olivier award when he played this part at the National Theatre.”
The centrality of the dance routines pushes Wilson, as conductor, slightly stage right – which is, he says, all to the good. “That’s what makes it exciting, collaborating with people from other disciplines. And if you’re working with good people there’s usually never a problem. It’s all very harmonious. I don’t want to hog the limelight.
“But,” he adds, “I do have two lines of dialogue in this thing.” Really? What does he have to say? He grins. “Can’t remember.”
Arrangements are the underbelly of the musical world, demanding skills which remain as mysterious to outsiders as the skills needed to pull a live rabbit from a hat. How would Wilson explain the process?
“Sixty years ago – even 30, 40 years ago, before synthesisers came along, music had to be made by musicians,” he says. “There were no electronics. So everything from an opera to an advert for Corn Flakes used an orchestra of some sort – and the process of making organised orchestral music, with individual parts which players can sit down and play, is arranging.”
He compares it to the creation of a suit of clothes. The material is there, but it needs to be shaped, tailored, given form and life. If arranging is akin to fashion design, however, Wilson’s task of reconstructing the lost scores from MGM musicals is a more extreme form of cognitive puzzle.
The problem arose when, in the 1950s, television began to cut into the profits of the big movie studios. The company was taken over, cutbacks were ordered, and the music library at Culver City was superfluous to requirements. “They decided to get rid of it.” Wilson says.
“It was used as landfill for a golf course. So every note of every film score written since 1927 was destroyed.”
We're not, he adds, talking second-rate stuff here. " The Wizard of Oz, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, High Society. Fortunately, for copyright reasons they kept piano parts for all of the films – and it's from those piano parts that I've managed to build up the full scores."
Wilson was commissioned by MGM to reconstruct the scores 10 years ago, and has already completed 140, among them The Wizard of Oz –which he performed in Dublin with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in 2007 and 2008 – and An American in Paris.
“You have to do it by listening,” he says. “It takes hours. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle from a second-hand shop, you know? There’s always lots missing. For a lot of those soundtracks from the ’30s and ’40s, it was very primitive sound recording so you can’t really hear a lot. You put the bass line down first, then the singing lines – all the things you hear instantly – and then you have to intelligently fill in the gaps.”
Filling in the gaps is something he doesn’t have to do with the John Wilson Orchestra, which he started when he was just out of college – an unusual move for a young musician.
“We started modestly, doing gigs in hotels and supper clubs and restaurants, and built it up from there.”
The orchestra made steady progress throughout the 1990s, and notched up a Grammy nomination for the music composed by Wilson for Kevin Spacey's Bobby Darin biopic, Beyond the Sea. Last year, a televised Proms concert sent their popularity rocketing even further. "I mean, huge," says Wilson. "Our tours sell out instantly. Extraordinary."
It also resulted in a recording contract with EMI, the first disc of which will be released at the end of August. "It's called That's Entertainmentand it's a tribute to, and celebration of, the MGM musicals – recordings of the restorations that I've made, with some lovely singers."
For a conductor, who generally tours around visiting various orchestral groups in different cities, what does it mean to have his own orchestra? “Well, it’s different in that it’s not a regular, straight symphonic orchestra,” Wilson says. “It’s a dance band with strings and woodwind. The trumpets and the trombones and the saxophones and the rhythm section in my orchestra are all dance band players or jazz players. So there’s a lot of music I can play with my orchestra that I wouldn’t necessarily play with any other orchestra. And plus, I’ve chosen all the players myself, and it’s full to the last desks with players who really, really want to be there. Who love music, and love this sort of music. And they’re all brilliant players.” Having said that, he has high praise for the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, with whom he has been working for nearly a decade.
“They’re very quick at getting into a new style, and they’ve got some very talented individual players in that orchestra. And they’ve certainly got an affinity with this music. And plus, I like the Irish. I like hanging out there. I’ve got a lot of friends in Dublin now.”
How much time does he spend in Ireland? “A staggering amount. I probably spend more time with the RTÉ than I do with any other orchestra outside of my own.”
Does the expression "light music" irritate him? "Well, it doesn't irritate me. But I think it leads to certain misunderstandings. People associate light music with easy listening, and because easy listening doesn't demand any concentration they think it must be easy to play. But everybody in the business knows that light music is really not easy to play. It's a damned sight harder to play the score of Singin' In The Rainthan it is to play a bog-standard symphony. Technically, anyway."
And after Singin' in the Rain, what then? "I'm with the RTÉ right through this season – so you can mention some of the forthcoming things that'll we do," he suggests. Such as? "Can't remember," he admits. But with Curtis Stigers and Kim Cresswell lined up to perform MGM classics such as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?,Get Happy with Wilson and the RTÉCO – that's coming up in March 2012 – it's going to be Singin' All The Way.
John Wilson conducts the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in a semi-staged production of Singin' In The Rainat the National Concert Hall on Friday and Saturday, August 12th and 13th. Tickets start at €15. See rte.ie/concertorchestra
