He has led opera performances at New York City Opera, and was for ten years an assistant conductor at The Metropolitan Opera. He has been a guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, KBS Symphony Orchestra, Kraków Philharmonic, Denver Symphony, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Hartford Symphony Orchestra, and Berkeley Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, and the St. Paul and Los Angeles chamber orchestras. He has also appeared with Glimmerglass Opera, Minnesota Opera, and the Opera of La Quincena Musical in Spain.

As an educator, he regularly leads masterclasses at the Paris Conservatory, The Juilliard School, Moscow Conservatory, Cambridge University, and others. A graduate of Juilliard, he was an Atlantique Foundation scholar in Paris, where he studied privately with Jean-Pierre Rampal. His recording career, which includes three Grammy nominations, began in 1973 with Rampal and I Solisti Veneti; since then he has recorded over 35 albums as flutist and/or conductor. Wilson is Professor of Flute at the Yale University School of Music, and has performed with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1991. He lives in the California desert with his husband of 36 years and their two dogs.

Read Ransom Wilson's The Flutist Quarterly tribute here.