Anthony Wilkinson (3 November)
Anthony Wilkinson studied oboe with the renowned Janet Craxton before being offered a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. Curiously, the Academy suggested instead that he go to university where he met the American violinist Jack Glatzer with whom he formed a duo partnership before being wooed by the Music and Arts Department of BBC TV a few months after the start of BBC2.
Those were heady days under the inspired leadership of Huw Wheldon and Humphrey Burton, and as Director of the magazine programme Music International, he travelled internationally, making films with and about such celebrated figures as Arthur Rubinstein, Nadia Boulanger, Benjamin Britten, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Léon Goossens. He has commissioned scores for his films from some of the most gifted composers of today including Ben Wallfisch, son of the renowned cellist Raphael Wallfisch (who delighted Putney Music a couple of years back).
He founded the Wimbledon International Music Festival in 2009, an endeavour inspired by his visit to the Dartington Summer School. The Festival, which takes place around St Cecilia’s Day each November, has since gone from strength to strength and has hosted some of today’s most renowned musicians including Alfred Brendel, Paul Lewis, Raphael Wallfisch, Mark Padmore and Boris Giltburg (who appears at the Festival playing Beethoven in November, and who visits Putney Music on 30 March – his second appearance). A performance of Britten’s Noyes Fludde on the composer’s birthday was among the successes of the Festival’s early years.
Although having now stepped down as director, succeeded by Anthony Friend, the Festival remains very close to his heart. A dream on the way to being fulfilled is the creation of a concert hall for Wimbledon by the architect Frank Gehry (https://wimbledonconcerthall.co.uk). Architecture is a passion for him too, although this has been fulfilled on his behalf by his daughter. Nowadays, painting, sculpture and garden design occupy what spare time he has.
