Olly Wilson

Olly Woodrow Wilson, Jr. (September 7, 1937 – March 12, 2018) was an American composer of contemporary classical music, pianist, double bassist, and musicologist. He was one of the preeminent composers of African American descent in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He is also known for establishing the TIMARA (Technology in Music and Related Arts) program at Oberlin Conservatory, the first-ever conservatory program in electronic music.

Wilson was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Alma Grace Peoples Wilson, a seamstress, and Olly Woodrow Wilson, Sr., an insurance salesman and butler. He graduated with a B.M. degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1959, and earned an M.M. degree in music composition in 1960 from the University of Illinois. His composition instructors included Robert Wykes, Robert Kelley, and Philip Bezanson. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1964.

Wilson taught at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (1965-1970). He was an emeritus professor of music at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught since 1970, retiring in 2002. He also served as the chairman of that university's music department between 1993 and 1997. His notable students include Neil Rolnick, Dwight Banks, Robert Greenberg, Tony Williams (jazz drummer) and Frank La Rocca.

He was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony and New York Philharmonic.

Wilson's music is published by Gunmar Music (a division of G. Schirmer). His music has been recorded on the Columbia, CRI, Desto, Turnabout, and New World labels.

Wilson died on March 12, 2018, at the age of 80.

• Elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1995
• Received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1971, which he used to live in West Africa, where he studied African music and languages.
• Received a Rome Prize, 2008