Chorley
Chorley is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England, north of Wigan, south west of Blackburn, north west of Bolton, south of Preston and north west of Manchester. The town's wealth ca ...
,
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...
. She studied at the
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...
with Patrick Cory and Harold Craxton, winning many prizes including the Chappell Silver Medal and Tobias Matthay Fellowship. Her later studies were with
Bruno Seidlhofer
Bruno Georg Seidlhofer (5 September 1905 – 19 February 1982) was an Austrian pianist, organist, academic teacher and piano teacher at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
Life
Born in Vienna, Seidlhofer taught piano at the Aca ...
Edwin Fischer
Edwin Fischer (6 October 1886 – 24 January 1960) was a Swiss classical pianist and conductor. He is regarded as one of the great interpreters of J.S. Bach and Mozart in the twentieth century.
Biography
Fischer was born in Basel and studied m ...
and
Wilhelm Kempff
Wilhelm Walter Friedrich Kempff (25 November 1895 – 23 May 1991) was a German pianist, teacher and composer. Although his repertoire included Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms, Kempff was particularly well known for his interp ...
. She studied
chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...
with the cellist
Pablo Casals
Pau Casals i Defilló (Catalan: ; 29 December 187622 October 1973), known in English as Pablo Casals,International Haydn-Schubert Competition in Vienna in 1959, and in 1960 became the first British pianist ever to win the Bösendorfer Prize.
Wright made her recital debut in the Großer Saal of the
Vienna Musikverein
The ( or ; ), commonly shortened to , is a concert hall in Vienna, Austria, which is located in the Innere Stadt district. The building opened in 1870 and is the home of the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra.
The acoustics of the building's 'Great ...
in 1960, stepping in for an indisposed
Martha Argerich
Martha Argerich (; ; born 5 June 1941) is an Argentine classical concert pianist. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argerich gave her debut concert at the age of eight before receiving further piano training in Europe. At an early age, she won sev ...
. This launched a distinguished international career including recitals, concerto performances and chamber music worldwide. She appeared as concerto soloist with many of Europe's renowned orchestras and with many distinguished conductors, and was broadcast from over thirty different European radio stations. At home she made her debut at the Proms at the
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. It has a seating capacity of 5,272.
Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres ...
in 1971, as soloist with the
Philharmonia Orchestra
The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI Classics, EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Rich ...
conducted by
Sir Adrian Boult
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult, CH (; 8 April 1889 – 22 February 1983) was a British conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family, he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London ...
.
Wright was pianist-in-residence at the
University of Southampton
The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...
(1972–1980), senior lecturer in keyboard studies at the
Royal Northern College of Music
The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) is a conservatoire located in Manchester, England. It is one of four conservatoires associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. In addition to being a centre of music education ...
(RNCM) (1972–78) and professor of piano at the
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...
(1978–1997). She was elected a fellow of the RNCM in 1993.
Wright was married in 1961 and had two sons.
She died in 2020.Duncan Honeybourne Rosemarie Wright obituary ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...