It's Beginning To Look Like Christmas
Meredith Willson
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Browse piano sheets by Meredith Willson on Zen Virtual Piano. Meredith Willson was born in Mason City, Iowa, on 18 May 1902, and learned to play piccolo and flute while still in high school. In 1919, at age 17, he enrolled at New York’s Institute of Musical Art, where he studied the flute under Georges Barrère, Henry Hadley, Mortimer Wilson, Bernard Wagenaar and Julius Gold. Study under several named teachers suggests a flutist whose training was shaped by many hands. Between 1921 and 1923 he toured the U.S., Cuba and Mexico as the flutist with Sousa’s Band, and in 1924 he worked briefly in New York’s Rialto Theater Orchestra under the leadership of Hugo Riesenfeld. A tour with Sousa’s Band and a post in the Rialto Theater Orchestra within a few years show a young flutist moving between two very different ensembles. He came to San Francisco, served as concert director for KFRC and rose to prominence in the early 1930s as a musical director at NBC, San Francisco. After serving as a Major in World War II, he returned to the States and continued songwriting while working as music director of the ABC radio and television networks. A move from flute performance to broadcasting roles shows a career crossing between performing and radio. He was best known as the author and composer of The Music Man, which premiered on Broadway in 1957. His scores and librettos include The Music Man, which earned him the New York Drama Critics, Tony and Grammy awards in 1958, The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Here’s Love. He wrote “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas,” and he and his wife, Ralina “Rini” Zarova, played all the parts of The Music Man during its seven years of development. A show developed over so many years reads as a work lived with for a long time before it reached Broadway.
Browse piano sheets by Meredith Willson on Zen Virtual Piano.
Meredith Willson was born in Mason City, Iowa, on 18 May 1902, and learned to play piccolo and flute while still in high school. In 1919, at age 17, he enrolled at New York’s Institute of Musical Art, where he studied the flute under Georges Barrère, Henry Hadley, Mortimer Wilson, Bernard Wagenaar and Julius Gold. Study under several named teachers suggests a flutist whose training was shaped by many hands.
Between 1921 and 1923 he toured the U.S., Cuba and Mexico as the flutist with Sousa’s Band, and in 1924 he worked briefly in New York’s Rialto Theater Orchestra under the leadership of Hugo Riesenfeld. A tour with Sousa’s Band and a post in the Rialto Theater Orchestra within a few years show a young flutist moving between two very different ensembles.
He came to San Francisco, served as concert director for KFRC and rose to prominence in the early 1930s as a musical director at NBC, San Francisco. After serving as a Major in World War II, he returned to the States and continued songwriting while working as music director of the ABC radio and television networks. A move from flute performance to broadcasting roles shows a career crossing between performing and radio.
He was best known as the author and composer of The Music Man, which premiered on Broadway in 1957. His scores and librettos include The Music Man, which earned him the New York Drama Critics, Tony and Grammy awards in 1958, The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Here’s Love. He wrote “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas,” and he and his wife, Ralina “Rini” Zarova, played all the parts of The Music Man during its seven years of development. A show developed over so many years reads as a work lived with for a long time before it reached Broadway.
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Common questions
Authoring and composing The Music Man, which premiered on Broadway in 1957 and earned him the New York Drama Critics, Tony and Grammy awards in 1958.
Yes. Between 1921 and 1923 he toured the U.S., Cuba and Mexico as the flutist with Sousa’s Band.
Meredith Willson wrote “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas.”