Music Director of the National Broadcasting Company of America
(Western Division) conducting the Augmented BBC Variety
Orchestra
Meredith Willson arrived in England on a visit a fortnight ago and has accepted the BBC's invitation to conduct the Augmented BBC Variety Orchestra tonight before going up to Scotland to spend a few days of his holiday there.
He is not unknown to listeners in this country, for his orchestra, playing from the NBC's San Francisco studio, has been heard in this country under his conductorship in a ' Five Hours Back ' programme.
Not yet 33, Meredith Willson has been a musician since he was 1 years old. At 16 he was playing under Sousa, at 19 under Toscanini and other great conductors of the New York Philharmonic.
His name is best known in connection with ' Chiffon Jazz', for which he is famous. These arrangements have been described as ' a unique presentation of jazz, not as the blaring, unmusical creature she has been called by her critics, but a delicate creation in rhythm, with point and counterpoint clearly etched against a filmy veil of interlocking harmonies '.