Will Lenton is Mr. Wilson’s company director, band leader and bass saxophonist. Alongside artistic director, Sonya Moorhead, Will has brokered wonderfully creative collaboration opportunities for the band with other companies and artists.

Will is a musical director, composer, performer and teacher. He has composed bespoke music for companies such as Wired Aerial Theatre and Walk the Plank, as well as dancers, filmmakers and installation artists.  He has developed a sustained relationship with outdoor arts company Pif-Paf, composing full-length soundtracks for their genre defying shows Trunk, The Distance Ladder, Something To Hold and Plantery.

In 2001, Will graduated from his primary degree in Ecology and Anthropology at Durham University and then cycled 17,000 miles from Arctic Alaska to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina, raising £12,000 for Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Returning to the UK, he moved to Manchester and retrained as a woodwind repairer with renowned craftsman, John Clark, at The Woodwind Workshop. Concurrently, he also gained an MA in Music Performance at Salford University, receiving tuition from eminent saxophonists, Munch Manship and Nat Birchall. During this time, he composed and arranged a considerable body of work that has since been performed at Manchester Jazz Festival by Hillary Step Quartet.

Will regularly teaches, both privately and in school settings, and as a passionate and engaging workshop facilitator, he values the impact that shared music can have on communities. It is important to Will that all his work is seated in his local community first. As a result, Mr. Wilson’s perform annually at hometown events, as well as touring internationally.

Will was the recipient of a Finzi Fellowship award in 2015 which he used to conduct a research trip to New Orleans to explore Second Lining in it’s original cultural context.