Hyde Park schools tuned up her musical career

“All of the Hyde Park School District music teachers are the reason I am a professional musician today,” said Keve Wilson, whose oboe skills have taken her from Hyde Park to the just-opened Broadway musical-comedy “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.”

Wilson was born in Hyde Park and graduated in 1987 from FDR High School, where her mother, Mary Lynn Wilson, was a teacher. She went on to study at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester.

“I got really serious about the oboe in high school,” she said, but noted her interest in music began even earlier than that.

It was Janice Holloway, the now-retired music and band director at Ralph R. Smith Elementary School, who inspired her to be the musician she is today. “She basically created musicians out of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders,” Wilson said of Holloway, who is now her friend on Facebook. (Award-winning composer James Syler also hails from Hyde Park and in public writings has credited Holloway for inspiring him as his first music teacher.)

Practice must’ve paid off for Wilson. As an adult, her music has been described as having a “magnificently sweet tone” by the New York Times, and she has toured with music groups all over the world.

She now lives in Manhattan and is excited to be part of a new Broadway show.

Wilson refers to the show, which opened Nov. 17, as “very clever British humor” that tells the story of a rich family with one of the actors playing eight different family members doomed to die.

“The music is so beautiful and kind of non-stop,” she said

For tickets, visit the Walter Kerr Theater at 219 W. 48 St. or contact the theater at 212-239-6200 or 800-432-7250. You can also purchase tickets online at www.agentlemansguidebroadway.com/tickets.php

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