Meredith Willson
Meredith Willson was born in Mason City, Iowa on May 18, 1902 He learned to play piccolo and flute while still in high school. In 1919, at age 17, he enrolled in New York's Institute of Musical Art, where he studied the flute under Georges Barrere, Henry Hadley, Mortimer Wilson, Bernard Wagenaar and Julius Gold.
Between 1921 and 1923, he toured the U.S., Cuba, and Mexico as the flutist with John Phillip Sousa's Band. In 1924, he worked briefly in New York's Rialto theater orchestra, under the leadership of Hugo Riesenfeld. From late 1924 to 1929 he was flutist in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the New York Chamber Music Society.
After serving as a Major in World War II, Willson returned to the States and continued songwriting while concurrently working as music director of ABC radio and television networks.
Throughout his diverse career, Wilson contributed scores and librettos to several Broadway scores including The Music Man, which earned him the New York Drama Critics, Tony and Grammy awards in 1958, The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Here’s Love.
Acting as lyricist and composer for most of his career, Willson wrote memorable standards including “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas”, “My the Good Lord Bless and Keep You”, “You and I”, “Two in Love”, “76 Trombones”, “Goodnight, My Someone”, “Till There Was You”, “Trouble”, “My White Knight”, “Lida Rose”, “I Ain’t Down Yet”, “Belly Up to the Bar, Boys”, “The Big Clown Balloons”, “Pine Cones and Holly Berries”, “My Wish”, “Iowa Fight Song”, “I See the Moon”, “Ask Not” and “Symphonic Variations on an American Theme.”
Meredith Willson died in Santa Monica, California in 1984.
The Music Man Square
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"The Original River City"
Mason City, Iowa
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Name: Meredith Willson
Status: Married
Hometown: Mason City, Iowa, USA
Died: June 15, 1984 (age 82) in Santa Monica, California, USA
Broadway
1959 recording of history and songs from The Music Man
Willson's most famous work, The Music Man, premiered on Broadway in 1957, and was adapted twice for film (in 1962 and 2003). He referred to the show as "an Iowan's attempt to pay tribute to his home state". It took Willson some eight years and thirty revisions to complete the musical, for which he wrote more than forty songs. The cast recording of The Music Man won the first Grammy Award for Best Original Cast Album (Broadway or TV). In 1959, Willson and his wife Rini recorded an album called "...and Then I Wrote The Music Man", in which they review the history of, and sing songs from, the show (album cover shown at right).[4] In 2010, Brian d’Arcy James and Kelli O’Hara played Willson and Rini in an off-Broadway entertainment based on this album.[5]
His second musical, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, ran on Broadway for 532 performances from 1960 to 1962 and was made into a 1964 motion picture starring Debbie Reynolds. His third Broadway musical was an adaptation of the film Miracle On 34th Street, called Here's Love (1963). His fourth, last, and least successful musical was 1491, which told the story of Columbus's attempts to finance his famous voyage. It was produced by the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Association in 1969, but was never produced on Broadway.[6]
Meredith Willson
