Andrew Wilson
Born in 1960 and studied at Trinity College and London University.
Formerly Director of Music at Kelly College, in 2015 he became the Vice Principal of the National College of Music, London.
His orchestral, chamber, and vocal works have been recorded, published and performed worldwide, from London’s Royal Albert Hall to Paris, from San Francisco to Tokyo and regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
He has won many international awards including: the Project Trio Competition 2017, UAB Chamber Trio Competition 2018, and the Northern California Viola Society Competition 2020.
He was a finalist in the 2022 NYC Contemporary Music Symposium at Columbia University; featured composer at the 2022 London New Wind Festival and the European Composers’ Network Lisbon, 2023 as well as Composer-in-Residence at the 2022 Cornwall Horn
Festival.
Recent commissions have included “The Pilgrim Fathers” for the Conchord Singers’ Mayflower400 celebrations in Southampton, “The Morgowr” for the Cornwall Youth Orchestra’s 50 th Anniversary concert, “Aiming at Eternity” for the 2023 Wren300 commemoration, the Concerto for Horn and Strings “The Blue Boy” and “Earth Signs” for Violin and Orchestra.
In 2021 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Johann Pestalozzi University, Miami, Florida.
Vanbrugh Sonata
The Vanbrugh Sonata for baroque violin and harpsichord by Andrew M. Wilson is named after the
English architect and dramatist Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), whose flamboyant and colourful
career earned him the sobriquet, The Father of the English Baroque. Each of the sonata’s three
movements is a musical sketch of one of Vanbrugh’s surviving buildings.
The Blenheim Grand Bridge, represents the pompous bridge that Vanbrugh cast over the River
Glyme in the grounds of his magnificent Blenheim Palace for the Duke of Marlborough. A formal
rhetorical dialogue between the instruments, like an operatic recitative, is followed by a fast flowing
Allegro.
The Summer Folly pictures a more intimate side of Vanbrugh’s architectural genius: an intriguing
summer retreat hidden in the grounds of Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire. It is a small scale but
luxurious bolt-hole, with a tower that gives uninterrupted views over the lonely fenlands. The music
is an introspective, contemplative aria, making a feature of characteristic baroque hemiola patterns.
The Temple of the Four Winds is to be found in the grounds of Castle Howard in Yorkshire. The open
hilltop site explains the temple’s dedication. Its intricate and quirky design is matched in the music;
which at first seems to be a lively Gig, typical of the last movement of a baroque sonata, but it has
five beats to a bar instead of six - giving it a distinctive rhythmic twist.