Thank You for 63 years of wonderful music!

We are happy to celebrate the fact that David Wilson conducted his first Slough Philharmonic concert over sixty years ago.

David is retiring after the concert on 5th March 2022. We will all miss him greatly.

David Wilson BEM (Conductor and Director of Music)

On November 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.

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 bassoon. He went on to study piano, organ and bassoon at the Royal College of Music, the latter with the great Archie Camden. After National Service in the RAF Central Band, and a year at Reading University, he was appointed Director of Music at Slough Grammar School. He also became conductor of the Beaconsfield Choral Society and organist at Slough Parish Church. He played widely as a professional bassoonist, honing his conducting skills by 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. In his first two years at Slough Grammar School the Senior Choir grew to one hundred members, and he conducted a performance of Handel's Messiah, with four visiting soloists and an orchestra drawn from the Slough Phil. In 1959 he moved to Bracknell to become Director of Music at Ranelagh School, and in the same year was appointed conductor of the Slough Phil.

At Ranelagh he built up a strong choral tradition until his retirement in 1997. Choral works included Verdi's Requiem, Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius, Brahms' Requiem, and a concert performance of Bizet's Carmen with three soloists from English National Opera, with three hundred pupils involved. Biennial opera productions included many of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and musicals such as My Fair Lady and West Side Story. All the choral works and operas were accompanied by members of the Slough Phil.

In his tenure as conductor for sixty years, the Society has played and sung an immense range of music, from Mahler's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies to Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, and recently two concerts devoted to film music. In 1996 David Wilson was awarded the ''Individual Contribution to the Arts'' by Slough Borough Council. He was awarded the British Empire Medal in the 2018 New Year’s Honours List for services to music and young people.