Born in Tyneside in 1972, John studied composition and conducting at the Royal College of Music, winning all the major conducting prizes and the coveted Tagore Gold Medal for the most outstanding student. He has conducted many leading British orchestras including the London Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the BBC Concert, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National, the Halle, the Bournemouth Symphony, the BBC Scottish Symphony, the English Chamber, the English Sinfonia, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia and the Britten Sinfonia and recently made his Danish debut with the Aalborg Symphony. He has made numerous recordings, most notably a series of highly acclaimed CDs with the John Wilson Orchestra for Vocalion and three discs of the music of Eric Coates for ASV.

A prolific arranger, John Wilson has produced countless orchestrations for film, radio and television. In 2000 he orchestrated Sir Richard Rodney Bennett’s entire score for the BBC production of ‘Gormenghast’, which won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Film Score. He has recently orchestrated and conducted Howard Goodall’s score for the BBC film ‘The Gathering Storm’ about the life of Winston Churchill. John enjoys a close working relationship with Sir Paul McCartney and has orchestrated several of his compositions. He has restored a number of classic film scores and recently took on the enormous task of reconstructing the orchestrations of all the major MGM Musicals.