Teaching & Consultancy
With over 35 years of experience in education from one to one teaching to University lecturing and from peripatetic services to the Conservatoire environment, Jeffery is well placed to offer lessons in Composition, Improvisation, Saxophone, Clarinet and general musicianship.
Students typically aspire towards higher education routes, are returning to their love of music, may be developing their skills as professionals, seeking qualifications or perhaps to add to their Continuing Professional Development (CPD).
The Environ Music consultancy service was launched at the beginning of 2012 and has touched the lives of many musicians, enabling people to find routes towards education, qualifications, career development and advancement.
Jeffery Wilson has national and growing international reputation as a creative musician and educator with a deep commitment to the art form and to the people involved in its creation.
His own musical education began at school in Essex as a child where Percussion, the Clarinet and later on the Saxophone were the instruments of choice. It was as a composer that Jeffery really found his ‘voice’, making up little pieces for his school mates to play in between playing and watching football – Upton Park was a particular attraction in those days.
One could not accuse him of being shy – when Jeffery heard that the great orchestrator Dr Gordon Jacob lived in Saffron Walden (just a couple of bus rides away) he journeyed to knock on the front door to ask for lessons. The first rejection only strengthened the resolve since after all he knew the bus route now. Lessons with Dr Jacob commenced eventually interrupted by a brief spell in the British Army on a short service commission.
The Royal College of Music followed with the fine teachers John Lambert and Herbert Howells. After a post graduate year in composition at the Royal College Jeffery spent a short time at Wolfson College, Cambridge to begin a doctorate in history but left to pursue active music making as a composer and performer. A meeting with Olivier Messiaen at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London resulted in the invitation to visit the composer in Paris and eventually to attend the harmony and aesthetics classes at the conservatoire. It is the latter experience that really brought the young composer to the conviction that religious faith and the creative arts are a positive force in the world and can be harnessed and shared for the greater good.
Professional music making for this composer and performer then began in earnest with residencies as a composer in over a dozen European cities and playing with ensembles as diverse as the London Jazz Composers Orchestra to the London Philharmonic Orchestra. On sessions for artists like Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, Barry Manilow and Cliff Richard.
To date Jeffery has written 34 dance scores for the likes of the Royal Ballet School, London Contemporary Dance and Ballet Rambert.
For the theatre he has written much incidental music a few musicals and one Opera ‘The Way to Glory’.
He is published widely and has about 150 or more works in the repertoire.
Jeffery was a visiting lecturer in music education, composition and improvisation at the Utrecht Conservatorium in Holland from 1986 till 2002.
Principal examiner (Jazz) Guildhall School of Music & Drama -Department of Initial Studies from 1993 till 2004.
Superviser on the music faculty at Cambridge University from 1997 to 2009.
Currently Coordinator and a Professor of Composition at Junior Guildhall (GSM&D) since 1994.
Examiner and adviser for Trinity College London from 2004
He has served on a number advisory bodies including the Music Education Council, Incorporated Society of Musicians and the executive at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
Let us continue to buck the artistic and economic trend this year and beyond.
A consultation session and a follow up letter with resources, advice and subsequent email support is available.
For more information contact me at: environmusic@hotmail.com