D. Wilson Ochoa

San Diego, California, native D. Wilson Ochoa comes to the Boston Symphony Orchestra from the Nashville Symphony, where he has been Principal Librarian for 12 seasons. He holds a bachelor of arts degree in music from San Diego State University and a master of music degree in horn performance from the University of Memphis. Previously, Mr. Ochoa played horn professionally for 13 years: he was a full-time musician in the Memphis Symphony, the Tulsa Philharmonic, and the Charleston (SC) Symphony, as well as playing extra with the Atlanta Symphony. He also toured Germany with the American Sinfonietta, and played summer music festivals with the National Repertory Orchestra, Missouri Chamber Orchestra, Cascade Festival, Bear Valley Festival, Coos Bay Festival, Bellingham Festival, and Bay View Music Festival. In 2000, Mr. Ochoa became the music librarian with the Charleston Symphony before moving on to Nashville in 2002. In his spare time, Mr. Ochoa does orchestral and chamber arrangements and transcriptions. His Ariadne auf Naxos Symphony-Suite, extracted and arranged from the Richard Strauss opera, was premiered by Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony in 2011, and is scheduled for further performances and a recording in 2016. Further Nashville performances are his orchestral transcriptions of Aaron Copland's Emblems, led by Leonard Slatkin; Sergei Prokofiev's March in B-flat, op. 99; John Barnes Chance's Elegy; and a live national television performance of Joseph Willcox Jenkins' American Overtureon July 4, 2005. His original choral work How Long, O Lord has been performed numerous times by choirs across the country. In addition, he has many arrangements performed and recorded for horn quartet and horn octet, woodwind quintet, brass quintet and brass choir. Wilson was assistant CD producer on the Nashville Symphony recordings of the complete Bachianas brasileiras by Villa Lobos, and has produced CDs for the Alias Chamber Ensemble (one of which was Grammy nominated) and for cello soloist Michael Samis. Mr. Ochoa credits his family (mother and 4 siblings) for his love of music, raised in a home where everyone played an instrument or sang and participated in music in the schools. Though everyone followed their own career paths (educator, astronaut, lawyer), all remain involved in music for the love of it.