Hilda Wilson

Hilda Wilson (7 April 1860 – 10 December 1918) was a British contralto and composer who also used the name Matilda Ellen Wilson and composed under the name Douglas Hope. Life Wilson was born into a musical family in Monmouth. Her father James Wilson was the bandmaster of the Monmouth Volunteer Corps. Her sister Agnes became a professional contralto, their brother James taught at the West London Conservatoire of Music, another brother, Henry Lane Wilson, (1871–1915), was a pianist, composer and baritone, and a third, W. Stroud Wilson, became a well-known violinist. Hilda’s early years were largely spent in Gloucester, where her family moved when she was four. The following year, a reviewer in The Western Mail wrote: Her vocal range in her early years was unusually wide. She was heard in concert in mezzo soprano and soprano solos, and was invited to sing the soprano part in Haydn’s The Creation before being guided towards a career as a contralto. During the 1880s and 1890s Wilson was a frequent soloist at the Three Choirs Festivals. In addition to singing in the mainstays of the festivals’ repertoire such as Messiah and Mendelssohn’s Elijah and St Paul, she took part in less often he