Rick Wilkins (musician)

Herbert Richard "Rick" Wilkins ( born 1 February 1927 in Hamilton / Ontario ) is a Canadian composer, arranger, jazz musician (tenor saxophone and other woodwinds ) and conductor.

Life and work

Wilkins played in dance orchestras of Jack Ryan and Gav Morton before the age of twenty went to Toronto. There he played in the bands of Benny Louis and others, and briefly studied arranging with Phil Nimmons at the Advanced School of Contemporary Music. He arranged music from 1960 for the CBC Orchestra Jack Kane and edited and directed for the CBC and the CTV compositions for Julie Amato, Tommy Ambrose, Guido Basso, Canadian Brass, Burton Cummings, Anne Murray, Wayne and Shuster and others.

For an appearance Buddy Greco on the Ed Sullivan show, he worked on a title, after its success Greco invited him in the summer of 1962 as a conductor to New York. In 1970 he became a member of Rob McConnell's Boss Brass band, to which he belonged for more than thirty years. At the same time, his collaboration with Tommy Ambrose, Doug Riley and Larry Trudel began in the field of jingle composition. As musical director of several series and specials for CBS TV in Los Angeles, he worked 1976/77 with the Jackson Five.

For a TV broadcast of the CBC he worked in 1979 Oscar Peterson Canadian Suite and conducted on the albums The Personal Touch (1980) and A Royal Wedding Suite ( 1981). For recording he arranged more works by the composer ( eg The Personal Touch and Royal Wedding Suite) as well as compositions by Peter Appleyard (including Swing Fever ), Salome Bey, Ed Bickert, Maureen Forrester, Vic Franklyn, Hagood Hardy, Maxwell King, Moe Koffman, Gene Lees, Ginette Reno, Arlene Smith and others. In 1988 he was commissioned to compose the music for the opening of the Winter Olympics in Calgary, and to conduct, the following year he was music director at the opening gala of the SkyDome in Toronto.

He composed film scores for several television and documentary films and jazz themes, among others, were performed by Moe Koffman, Rob McConnell and Frank Wess. For the group Boss Brass, he wrote the symphonic jazz piece TO 150 PJ Perry commissioned him to arrange an evening of jazz for saxophone and symphony orchestra, which premiered he played with the Edmonton Symphony and The Wilkins later conducted with the Kitchener -Waterloo Symphony. In 2005, he wrote more symphonic pieces for Perry and the following year two symphonic arrangements for a gig John McDermott in Kenedy Center for Performing Arts.

Wilkins also led his own quartet and took the LPs Christmas with Rick Wilkins and the Mutual Understanding ( 1970), My Heart Belongs to Me ( 1977), For the Sake of Music ( 1978) and Discovery (1981 ) on. He is also on recordings by Phil Nimmons, Duke Ellington, Moe Koffman to hear Gene Lees, Guido Basso, Peter Appleyard, Trudy Desmond, Bobbi Sherron, Louie Bellson, Ian McDougall and the Concord Festival All Stars.

He was honored with the Order of Canada in 2002. From 2005 to 2008 he was nominated as Arranger of the Year every year for the National Jazz Award.

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