Mark Wilson - Tuning In
Renowned and adored locally not only for his incredible musical ability, but also his infectious trademark laugh, Mark Wilson has graced more local stages and late night venues than he’s had Fergburgers.
The son of an Anglican vicar, Mark has only known blind, but despite that he’s embraced life and all its opportunities with full joy and gusto and the most positive of attitudes. “I guess I’m a glass half full person,” he admits.
Born 10 weeks early in 1968 he was placed in an incubator – the first at Invercargill’s Kew Hospital, totally not expected to live. The retinas in his eyes were burned but miraculously he had no brain damage.
“It’s no huge thing for me. If you’re blind from birth you haven’t lost anything. That’s just my reality,” he says. His blindness was turned around for good when at four he discovered a unique gift for music. “The first time I ever really processed music, whether on the radio or records, I was four. I responded to music from three-years old in all manner of ways.” These were not always welcomed by his parents, from singing loudly in his sleep to getting up at 2am to play with his toys because he couldn’t see it wasn’t light. However, it worked to his parents’ benefit too. “An Andy Williams crooner record would send me falling to sleep on the doorstep,” laughs Mark.
A late speech bloomer, Mark had to go to boarding school – Homai College for the Blind in Auckland, aged five. This was a barrier breaker, learning musical instruments, with pianos in every hostel that the kids were encouraged to play.
The family by then living in Palmerston North, boarding so young was tough, and on his family, including five siblings. On the flipside braille literacy at Homai was first class. “There were still a few institutional leanings that made us a bit self-conscious, but luckily I’m from a bloody-minded family,” he grins. “I have a low boredom threshold so at five I wandered off while the college psychologist was asking me questions so he determined I’d go to manual workshops for a year and not learn Braille.” Another staff member at high school asked him, ‘When are you going to do something about your laugh?’ That laugh still lights up an audience today.
Everything clicked for Mark in his music too once he learned Braille, which made the impossible all at once very, very possible. “I’m blessed with a wonderful family who treated me like anyone else would, disciplined me normally, but believed in me.”
It turns out the psychologist was wrong. Mark has an uncanny gift for mental arithmetic and automatically announces the day of the week, date and year if you ask him, ‘when?’
He has a unique ability to absorb musical chords and thought he’d end up as a concert pianist but he had too many musical genres. “I derive a lot of pleasure from playing music by myself and with others.”
After finishing top level piano exams, Mark completed a Bachelor of Music Performers - Piano at Auckland University School of Music.
He scored gigs with an Auckland jazz group until the family moved to Alexandra where he’d planned on staying for a ‘gap’ year.
However, in the early 1990s he met then well-known Queenstown performers Katrina Kallil, Nigel Hirst and Margaret O’Hanlon. “If it wasn’t for Katrina I wouldn’t have got work in Queenstown.”
Work increased, playing keyboard for Master Blasters and Mark stayed with Margaret and Nigel while ‘gigging’ before they found him a perfect downtown rental.
He bought his own unit in 2000 and when diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2009 a huge community mucking in of sorts saw his Ballarat Street apartment completely refurbished as a homecoming surprise.
Mark walked downtown to play most nights with his cane to the tune of numerous ‘Hi Mark’s from almost everyone he passed. “In my crusty old bachelor days I’d get the munchies at 2am and trot off to Ferburger. I suspect it wouldn’t be as safe these days. A couple of times I got a bit lost.”
His funniest on stage faux pas was while singing ‘You Raise Me Up’ solo in 2006 with the Central Otago Regional Choir. “I had a little moment, is it ‘until you come and share a while, or sit a while with me?’ Unfortunately it came out as the two of them – shit a while.” On another occasion he almost stepped off the stage. “Luckily I used my shuffle method but some of the cast almost had kittens.”
Mark’s won an Australian composition competition, was runner-up of the Otago Southland Presbyterian Church hymn-writing competition with ‘Come Let Us Sing, won the Heart of the District Arts Award and the Royal NZ Foundation of the Blind’s Blind Achiever’s Award. He’s recorded a solo jazz piano album, other recordings and albums, including his original Christian and contemplative songs, and had an original Christmas Carol, ‘You Are Born In Us Again’, published and recorded by the NZ Hymn Book Trust.
He shudders at being ‘pigeon-holed’ into one genre, describing himself as ‘eclectic’.
A second bout with brain cancer has had him temporarily off the local stage this year (2022) but after successful treatments he’s hoping to return soon.
“Music, Emma, and my whole family, have been a tower of strength. People talk about cooking and gardening as therapy. Music is for me,” he says. “It produces endorphins. It calms me, but also excites me. It can reflect what personality or mood I’m in. It’s a type of expression.”
