George Balch Wilson

Born in Grand Island, Nebraska, Wilson grew up in Lincoln. His father was an amateur flutist and clarinetist and his mother was a pianist who had earned money for his family accompanying silent films during the Great Depression. His parents often played duets together at home and took Wilson to local concerts by ensembles like the Lincoln Symphony. He also received music lessons from them. Although this exposure instilled a love for music within Wilson, the nervousness of public performance led to his eventual refusal to pursue further musical studies in his childhood. He later took piano lessons intermittently during his teenage years. His grandfather was a doctor in the small town of Rushville, Nebraska located near the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and thus the family had opportunities during visits to interact with the local Sioux community. This was the beginning of Wilson's lifelong fascination with the art, history and languages of the Sioux, Hopi and Navaho cultures.

As a boy, Wilson developed an interest in photography and at the age of 12 he began working for the Lincoln regional office of the Natural Resources Conservation Service as a photo lab technician. At the age of 13 his family moved to Denver, Colorado where he worked as a lab technician for a portrait photographer while attending high school. At the age of 18 he became a radio operator gunner in the United States Air Force for a short time before being reassigned to the teaching staff at the Air Force Photographic School at Lowery Field. He became burned out on the business of photography while working there, coming to the realization that his real passion was music.

In 1947 Wilson entered the music program at the University of Michigan (UM) through funds provided by the G.I. Bill. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Music, a Master of Music, and a Doctor of Music, all in music composition, from the UM. Among his teachers as the UM were Percy Price, Homer Keller, and Ross Lee Finney. In 1953 he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship which enabled him to pursue studies in Belgium and France. He notably studied with Jean Absil at the Brussels Conservatory and with Nadia Boulanger in both Paris and at the Fontainebleau Schools. He was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1955 which further extended his studies in Europe through 1958. During that time he pursued studies in Italy in electronic music. He later pursued further studies in that field with Milton Babbitt, Mario Davidovsky, Otto Luening, and Vladimir Ussachevsky at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.