1954 – 2024
The composer and loyal BMS member Christopher Wright died on 4th December 2024 of pneumonia, following a sad decline into dementia during the past year. Chris was born in Ipswich on 30 April 1954 and started composing in his teens, his earliest performance being A Kyson Point Suite in 1971, played in Ipswich Town Hall.
He studied composition primarily at the Colchester Institute, where he was taught by two notable composers, Richard Arnell, for whose 87th birthday he composed an organ piece, and Alan Bullard. Chris was married in 1993 to his wife Ruth, a talented violinist, for whom he wrote several pieces.
Shortly after his marriage, he gave up teaching and turned to composition full-time, living and working in an aptly named house (Beech Ham) in Woodbridge. Sadly, Ruth died from cancer in 2009, which devastated Chris: he wrote a deeply-felt violin concerto in her memory.
Many of Chris’s works were inspired by the coastline and countryside of his native Suffolk, his home county, including The Lost City for orchestra (Dunwich), Shingle Street (a quaintly named coastal village) for strings, String Quartet No. 1 (the Martello Towers and the radar and MoD installations at Orford), Orfordness for flute, violin, cello and piano, Woodbridge Pieces for organ, and Four East Coast Sketches for harp. There is a substantial quantity of choral and instrumental music, much of which has been recorded.
After Chris gave up teaching, substantial works followed from his pen, including memorable concertos for violin (recorded by Fenella Humphreys), oboe (Jonathan Small), horn (Richard Watkins), and cello (Raphael Wallfisch). His compositional career was crowned by a substantial four movement Symphony, completed in 2015, performed in the English Music Festival in 2018, and recorded in 2021, along with his Horn Concerto, by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under John Andrews.
I was first introduced to Chris at the house of a mutual friend, the composer Elis Pehkonen who lived nearby at Theberton, on the cusp of the RSPB bird reserve. For me Chris wrote several works, most of which have appeared on disc. These include a substantial Sonata for recorder and piano, a Divertimento for recorder and string orchestra (or string quartet, or piano), In Celebration for recorder and string quartet, and Munrow’s Muse, a dramatic work celebrating the life and character of my friend David Munrow, for soprano, counter-tenor, bells, and harpsichord.
Sadly, most live performances of Chris’s music tended to be just in his home county of Suffolk, and rarely on the national stage, which the music most certainly deserved, being approachable, sometimes light hearted, always memorable and eminently playable, with a sense of being created by a musician with deep convictions. It must survive!
Written by John Turner
Photograph credit: Susan Porter Thomas