Richard Wilson is the composer of some ninety works in many genres, including opera. He has received such recognition as an Academy Award in Music (from the American Academy of Arts and Letters), the Hinrichsen Award (from the American Academy of Arts and Letters), the Stoeger Prize (from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center), the Cleveland Arts Prize (from the Women's City Club of Cleveland), and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Recent commissions have come from the Koussevitsky and Fromm Foundations. His orchestral works have been performed by the San Francisco Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the American Symphony, the Pro-Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Colombia, the Residentie Orkest of The Hague, and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic.

A piano student of Leonard Shure and Friedrich Wührer, he has appeared as concerto soloist with The Hudson Valley Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, the American Symphony Chamber Orchestra, the Residentie Orkest of The Hague, and—as recently as December—the Vassar College Orchestra.   

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard, Mr. Wilson holds the Mary Conover Mellon Chair in Music at Vassar College; he is also Composer-in-Residence with the American Symphony Orchestra, for which he gives pre-concert talks.