Biography

Meredith Willson was one of the most popular and acclaimed songwriters, conductors, arrangers, and radio/TV personalities of the 20th Century.  Born in Mason City, Iowa (immortalized in Meredith Willson’s The Music Man as “River City”), Willson proved to be a talented musician at a young age.  Early in his life he studied the piano, piccolo, and flute.  He attended the Damrosch Institute of Musical Art (now named The Juilliard School) in New York City.  He traveled the United States three times with famed bandmaster/composer John Philip Sousa as a valued member of the Sousa band, played flute and piccolo for the New York Philharmonic under legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini, conducted symphony orchestras, wrote best-selling books, composed symphonies and wrote pop tunes that rose to number one on the Hit Parade.  Read more…