Meredith WILSON: Serious Composer (Who Likes Slapstick Comedy) And Conductor Keeps Young in Music Business
Biography Meredith Willson Serious Composer (Who Likes Slapstick Comedy) And Conductor Keeps Young in Music Business” Meredith Wilson , whose agile pen and brisk baton will be responsible for the music on NBC’s “The Big Show” on Sunday nights (premiere Nov. 5, 6:00-7:30 p.m., EST), is a musician of remarkably variegated experience—ranging from serious composition and the writing of best-selling-books to band-leading and slapstick comedy. His many-faceted character, as a matter of fact, so baffled the distinguished British conductor, Dr Albert Coates, during a broadcast in which Wilson clowned with the late Frank Morgan that Coates was temporarily horrified. “I conducted you ‘Missions of California” symphony because I considered you one of the most promising of the young American composers”. Coates told Wilson later, “but when I saw you doing that slapstick” Coates shuddered, failed to finish the sentence. He was a busy man for the nex...