Versatile is the word to describe Sheboygan-born maestro Wayne Wildman. His musical collaborators range from Yefim Bronfman and Gary Karr to the Canadian Brass and Dinah Shore. Educated at Lakeland College and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Wildman is in his eighteenth season as Music Director of the Manitowoc Symphony Orchestra.

Wildman has been heard as harpsichord and/or piano soloist with the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, the Sheboygan Symphony, the Manitowoc Symphony and the Green Bay Civic Symphony. He has appeared with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in recitals at Symphony Center and the Art Institute of Chicago, served as accompanist for the Fourth International Henryk Szeryng Violin Competition in Toluca, Mexico and performed on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Live from the Elvejhem” series. In the summer of 2005, Wildman conducted the largest gathering of cellos in Wisconsin state history at Summerfest. In the summer of 2007 he made his third appearance at the Washington Island Music Festival, participating in performances of Bach’s “Fifth Brandenburg Concerto” and the Alexander Fesca Septet in C minor.

An experienced theatrical composer, Wildman scores have been performed in Nebraska, North Carolina and Florida as well as Wisconsin. Recent projects include “Variations on a Raider Theme,” a work for band commissioned by Sheboygan North High School as part of its Artist in Residence Program, and “Blue Harbor Dawn and Celebration,” an overture commissioned by the Sheboygan Area Youth Symphony Orchestra to celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary. Currently, Wildman is at work on a large-scale piece for the Lakeshore Chorale’s twenty-fifth anniversary, which will be premiered in May of 2008.

Wildman also serves as Music Director of First United Lutheran Church in Sheboygan and as a music instructor at the University of Wisconsin.