Ted Wilson – Parish Musician
Ted Wilson has been a freelance producer, composer, arranger and keyboardist in Nashville for over 35 years. He has worked extensively in the area of music for children, having been a creator on 13 musicals for children’s choir. He was an executive producer for two revisions of McGraw-Hill’s music textbook series for grades K-8, and was an arranger on the Grammy-winning Songs from the Neighborhood: a Tribute to Mr. Rogers. He was also the producer of Lifeway’s Children’s Music Series and Family Bible Series for twelve years.
As an arranger and keyboardist, he has written for orchestra, big band and choir (not all at once, thankfully), often combining them with his own pre-programmed tracks. He is the arranger featured in Sierra Music’s Christmas Swings series, a collection of Christmas songs arranged for big band, and has contributed compositions and arrangements to the book of the Nashville Jazz Orchestra.
As a pianist, he maintains a varied schedule, accompanying local jazz artists, playing from time to time with the Nashville Jazz Orchestra, and is very proud to be the music director at Christ Lutheran Church. He is also the accompanist, as Roland G. Chord VII, for the Glory Bugles.
He has also had a career as a recording engineer, having been a partner in a recording studio in the 80′s, and continuing to this day. He has numerous album credits in addition to being the mixing engineer on many of his own projects, most notably the cast album of an off-Broadway musical, Violet.
As a teenager in Hendersonville, Tennessee, he was fortunate to have been a part of a very active youth choir at First Methodist Church. After college, he returned to serve the church for seven years, four of those as director of the New World Generation, the youth choir in which he had been a charter member. He served the music program at Woodmont Christian church for 16 years, as a pianist, arranger and tenor soloist.
He attended Tennessee Tech University, studying trombone with Larry Hoepfinger, composition with Robert Jager, and ear training and theory with Ron Rudkin. He has also studied trombone with Les Benedict, jazz piano and arranging with Marlene and Jerry Tachoir. And, being a native of Nashville, he is very grateful for the wealth of musical influences he grew up with.
He has three beautiful daughters-Anna, Maria and Natalie, a wonderful, supportive girlfriend, Joan, and a border collie, Jack, who becomes extremely agitated when he sees a greyhound. The dog, not the bus.