Wilhelm Gericke (18 April 1845 – 27 October 1925) was an Austrian-born conductor and composer who worked in Vienna and Boston.
He was born in Schwanberg, Austria. Initially he trained in Graz to be a schoolmaster. This didn't work out, though he did get a position playing violin in a theatre orchestra. In 1862 he entered the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied under Dessoff. Leaving the conservatory in 1865, he became kapellmeister of the theatre at Linz, directing opera there and in Vienna. In 1874, he became second kapellmeister and chorus master at the Vienna Court Opera, where his lifelong friend Hans Richter was first kapellmeister. There he gave the Viennese premiere of Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser. He also made a name for himself producing French and Italian operas. On the retirement of Brahms from the conductorship of the Vienna Society (German: Wiener Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde) concerts (German: Gesellschaftskonzerte) in 1880, Gericke succeeded him, and also became the conductor of its choral society (German: Singverein).
