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Songwriter and composer, conductor and playwright. Early in his career, Willson played piccolo and flute, first in John Philip Sousa's band and then in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Willson was twice nominated for Academy Awards for film scores, and his most famous work, the Broadway show "The Music Man" , won the 1958 Tony for Best ...
- May 18, 1902
- June 15, 1984
Robert Reiniger Meredith Willson [1] (May 18, 1902 – June 15, 1984) was an American flautist, composer, conductor, musical arranger, bandleader, playwright, and writer.
His third Broadway musical, Here’s Love with Laurence Naismith and Janis Paige, ran for 334 performances from October 1963 to July 1964. Willson completed one more musical, 1491, tracing the efforts of Christopher Columbus to raise money for his voyage to “Cathay.”.
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.
The Music Man Foundation is named after the Tony winning musical written by Meredith Willson. Meredith’s widow, Rosemary, started the Foundation in 1998 as the Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charitable Foundation and substantially increased the Foundation’s endowment upon her death in 2010.
Meredith Willson--musician, playwright, and composer--was best known for the book, words, and music for The Music Man (1962). He wrote two other musical plays, including The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964).
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Apr 1, 2012 · Willson (surely one of the last males in America to carry the first name of Meredith) was 55 years old when The Music Man premiered, and the two musicals that followed it, The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1960) and Here’s Love (1962), were successful in their day but have since failed to hold the stage. (The peculiarly unmusical movie version of ...
