Christopher Wright (30 April 1954 – 4 December 2024) was a British music teacher and composer. He described the style of his own music as "largely tonal with atonal flavourings".[1] Others have noted an English pastoral sensibility and the influence ofWilliam Walton.[2]
Wright was born inIpswich,Suffolk[3] and began composing while still a teenager: hisKyson Point Suite for flute, oboe, violin and cello was performed atIpswich Town Hall in 1971.[4] He went on to study composition at theColchester Institute withRichard Arnell andAlan Bullard. While in Colchester he also first made friends with fellow student and East Anglian composer Nicholas Barton.[5] He took further composition lessons withStanley Glasser atGoldsmiths College and withNicholas Sackman at theUniversity of Nottingham.[1]
Initially Wright worked as a music teacher and a peripatetic brass teacher at various state and independent establishments, and as a trombonist, piano accompanist and choral trainer in local music activities.[6] But in 1993 illness forced him to retire from teaching and he became a full-time composer.[2] In the same year he married Ruth Dickins (1958–2009), a violinist who studied at theGuildhall School of Music. They settled inWoodbridge, Suffolk.[7]
Ruth Wright died of cancer in 2009. Christopher Wright died of pneumonia on 4 December 2024, following a long decline resulting from dementia.[3] His music has been recorded on the Cameo,Dutton Epoch, Divine Art/Metier,Lyrita, Merlin Classics and Toccata labels.
Wright's 2010 Violin Concerto was written in memory of his wife and recorded byFenella Humphreys. He also composed an Oboe Concerto for Jonathan Small, a Horn Concerto forRichard Watkins and a Cello Concerto forRaphael Wallfisch. His four movement Symphony (2015) received its first performance at the English Music Festival,Dorchester on Thames, in 2018.[8] Other compositions include much choral, chamber and instrumental music, including a series of works related to Suffolk - such asOrfordness for flute, violin, cello and piano, theWoodbridge Pieces for organ, andFour East Coast Sketches for harp. Likewise the orchestral pieceThe Lost City was inspired byDunwich and the String Quartet No. 1 byOrford Ness.[3] The four string quartets (all recorded by the Fejes Quartet) span the years 1978 to 2012.[9]