John Richard Wright
Our New Organist-Choirmaster
View September 1999: Welcoming John Richard Wright
St. Margaret's is pleased to announce the appointment of John Wright as our
new Organist-Choirmaster. John comes to us from Calvary Episcopal Church in
Memphis, Tennessee where he has been Organist-Choirmaster since 1993.
Prior to that, he held the same position at Christ Episcopal Church in San Antonio,
TX. for 5 years, All Souls Episcopal Church in Oklahoma City for 9 years and
St. Michael's in Mission, KS for 2 years. John's total experience spans 22 years
as a principal church organist; 17 years in the Episcopal Church.
Calvary Episcopal Church, founded in 1832, is a very alive and active downtown parish with outreach ministries in many directions. It has a long tradition of excellent music strongly supported by the parish as well as the community
While at Calvary, John's responsibilities included all music in the parish, including worship design and annual budgeting for the music department; Director of the Calvary Choir, an adult choir of 30 singers; Director and Conductor of the annual performances of MESSIAH at Calvary, with a Community Choir of 110 singers and orchestra (1999 will be the 75th annual presentation of this event at Calvary Church-always performed to a standing room only audience from the Memphis community).
In addition to John's regular responsibilities at Calvary, he supervised an associate organist-choirmaster and apart-time children's choir director. He also directed "Calvary and the Arts," a 10 week noonday series which usually filled the church each Wednesday with downtown business people for a 25 minute concert with lunch by various downtown Memphis restaurants. This series included classical, jazz, opera, gospel, blues, folk, and ballet. John also planned and coordinated the "Friends of Music" Concert series which included 7 or 8 Sunday evening concerts throughout the year. Both of the aforementioned series were funded and supported by private donations each year.
John is married and has a twenty year-old daughter. His wife Ann is also a musician and currently teaches at St. Mary's Episcopal School for Girls in Memphis. The staff and parish of St. Margaret's is proud to welcome John and his wife to their family. Our parish and all Coachella Valley residents are additionally blessed to have them join our desert community.
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