Hail to the chief

Dr. Peter Wilson will direct the Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra on Valentine’s Day, on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church on Wayne Avenue, in a program titled “A Salute to the American Presidency,” a title chosen to honor the country’s recent inauguration of its president as well as the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln.

Wilson began his professional career as concertmaster of the Walt Disney World Orchestra in Florida.

For more than a decade, he served as a lecturer for the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at Catholic University, where he held such positions as resident conductor and acting director of the university symphony orchestra and wind ensemble, respectively, and taught courses on podium conducting and string techniques. Wilson has conducted numerous ensembles of the Marine Band — the nation’s oldest musical organization – in restorations of great American works including Gershwin’s original 1924 version of “Rhapsody in Blue” and Copland’s “Appalachian Spring Suite” for 13 instruments as well as Schoenberg’s “Chamber Symphony, Op. 9” and Shostakovich’s “Jazz Suite No. 1.”

Wilson holds a doctorate in music arts, orchestral studies, from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and was appointed music director of the Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra in May 2007.

A member of “The President’s Own,” Wilson serves as a violinist of The White House orchestra and commander of the string section for the U.S. Marine Band. In addition, he has made several appearances as guest conductor with the National Gallery Orchestra of Washington, D.C.

Wilson is an active chamber musician, concertmaster, recording artist and performance clinician throughout the United States and abroad and has appeared as a violin soloist in such venues as the Presidential Retreat at Camp David, the Vatican before Pope John Paul II, the American Embassy in Paris and Chicago’s Comiskey Park, where he performed his arrangement of “The Star-Spangled Banner” to open a major league baseball game.

In addition, he has appeared as a violin soloist with such renowned artists as Rosemary Clooney, Michael Feinstein, Renée Fleming, Bernadette Peters, Randy Travis and Trisha Yearwood, and has performed chamber music in concert with Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom and Peter Wiley. In addition, he has performed in orchestras backing up Ray Charles, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Johnny Mathis and Joni Mitchell, as well as Jimmy Page and Robert Plant in their Zeppelin UnLEDed World Tour.

In 2000, he was invited to the Beverly Hilton where he performed violin solos during a special USO tribute to Bob Hope, and in 2001, he soloed at the personal invitation of former Defense Secretary William Cohen for a private book signing and release event honoring Quincy Jones and his autobiography “Q.”

Wilson has appeared in several international magazines and has had his worked reviewed in the The Washington Post. He has performed works such as John Corigliano’s “The Red Violin: Chaccone for Violin and Orchestra,” after which the award winning composer said, “[Wilson’s] beautiful performance of my Chaconne … how gorgeous it was ... and so true to the piece.”

He performed the violin solo to theme from “Schindler’s List” under the baton of composer John Williams after which The Washington Post praised him.
Wilson was born in Cleveland, Ohio, where he began his musical training at the age of 2 as a violin student of his mother, Mary Wilson. He began piano studies at age 5 with his grandmother, Maxine Cummins, and later moved to Morgantown, W.Va., where he became the first musician ever to receive the Governor’s Award for Exceptional Achievement in the Arts.

He received a bachelor of music degree from Northwestern University and advanced degrees from Catholic University. Other violin teachers have included Linda Cerone, Jody Gatwood, Robert Gerle, Blair Milton and Donald Portnoy. His primary conducting studies were with Victor Yampolsky and he has participated in master classes with Marin Alsop and Gustav Meier.

Most recently, Wilson was selected as one of only nine conductors to work with Maestro Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra in the National Conducting Institute in Washington, D.C.

He currently resides in Fairfax with his wife, Katie, and sons, Bradley, Gregory and Thomas.

The program includes Copeland’s “Lincoln Portrait” and “Fanfare for the Common Man,” Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with the White House’s piano soloist Anna Maria Mottola, The “JFK Suite” by Williams, Woodin’s “FDR March,” Sousa’s “Presidential Polonaise” and the Theme from “The West Wing.” Admission is free.