Roger William Wright CBE (born 15 August 1956, in Manchester) [1] is an English arts administrator. He is currently the Chief Executive of Britten Pears Arts. [2]
Roger William Wright CBE (born 15 August 1956, in Manchester) [1] is an English arts administrator. He is currently the Chief Executive of Britten Pears Arts. [2]
Wright was educated at Chetham's School of Music, Manchester, and played the cello as a youth. He studied music at Royal Holloway College, University of London, and earned a B.Mus. in 1977. On graduation, he took a sabbatical year, 1977–78, as the elected President of the Student Union. [3]
From 1978 to 1986, Wright worked at the British Music Information Centre (BMIC), as librarian and manager, then as director. [3] He served as a senior producer for the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1986 to 1989. He became the artistic administrator of The Cleveland Orchestra in 1989. He left his Cleveland post in 1992 for Deutsche Grammophon (DG), where he became an executive director and vice-president, and worked there until 1997. [4]
In March 1997, Wright took up the newly created BBC post of Head of Classical Music, in charge of the BBC's orchestras, choirs, and bands. [4] In 1998, he became Controller of Radio 3. During his Radio 3 tenure he raised the profile of jazz and world music, causing controversy among listeners. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] Other Radio 3 programming changes such as a perceived diminution of live music broadcasts also attracted controversy, [10] in addition to a perceived dilution of the level of programming. [11] Wright was named Director of the BBC Proms in April 2007 [12] and formally took up the post in October 2007, succeeding Nicholas Kenyon. In March 2014, he announced his resignation from the BBC to become chief executive at Aldeburgh Music, effective September 2014. [13] When Wright formally stood down as Controller of Radio 3 and of The Proms in July 2014, he was the longest serving controller of the station. [14] Following Aldeburgh Music's merger with Snape Maltings in 2015, [15] and Snape Maltings' merger with the Britten-Pears Foundation in 2020, [16] he is currently Chief Executive of Britten Pears Arts, [17] which runs Snape Maltings, The Red House, Aldeburgh, and the Aldeburgh Festival. In July 2023, Britten Pears Arts announced that Wright is to stand down as its chief executive in July 2024. [18]
In 2023, the Royal Academy of Music announced Wright as an Honorary Fellow. [19] In 2002, Wright was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Royal Holloway College. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Music and a Fellow of the Radio Academy. His publications include the volume New Music 1989, in collaboration with Michael Finnissy.[ citation needed ]
He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to music. [20] [21]
Wright and his wife Rosie, a yoga teacher, have two children, [6] Alice and William.
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).
Aldeburgh is a coastal town in the county of Suffolk, England, north of the River Alde. Its estimated population was 2,276 in 2019. It was home to the composer Benjamin Britten and remains the centre of the international Aldeburgh Festival of arts at nearby Snape Maltings, which was founded by Britten in 1948. It also hosts an annual poetry festival and several food festivals and other events.
The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall.
BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also featuring. The station describes itself as "the world's most significant commissioner of new music", and through its New Generation Artists scheme promotes young musicians of all nationalities. The station broadcasts the BBC Proms concerts, live and in full, each summer in addition to performances by the BBC Orchestras and Singers. There are regular productions of both classic plays and newly commissioned drama.
Stuart Oliver Knussen was a British composer and conductor.
Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010).
Colin Matthews, OBE is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Noted for his large-scale orchestral compositions, Matthews is also a prolific arranger of other composer's music, including works by Berlioz, Britten, Dowland, Mahler, Purcell and Schubert. Other arrangements include orchestrations of all Debussy's 24 Préludes, both books of Debussy's Images, and two movements—Oiseaux tristes and La vallée des cloches—from Ravel's Miroirs. Having received a doctorate from University of Sussex on the works of Mahler, from 1964–1975 Matthews worked with his brother David Matthews and musicologist Deryck Cooke on completing a performance version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony.
Snape Maltings Concert Hall is an arts complex on the banks of the River Alde at Snape, Suffolk, England. It is best known as one of the main sites of the annual Aldeburgh Festival. It is now one of two headquarters for Britten Pears Arts, with the other being The Red House.
Eric Crozier OBE was a British theatrical director, opera librettist and producer, long associated with Benjamin Britten.
Rae Woodland was a British soprano who studied with Roy Henderson. Her debut was as Queen of the Night at Sadlers Wells. She sang in many European festivals, and debuted at Covent Garden in La sonnambula with Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti. She was first asked to sing for Benjamin Britten on the English Opera Group's tour of Russia, and played many roles for him subsequently. She also created roles for Gottfried von Einem, Nicholas Maw and Sir Arthur Bliss, and made many live broadcasts for the BBC, from the RAH Proms to Friday Night is Music Night. She retired from the opera stage in 1984. She then taught singing at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and at the Britten-Pears School in Snape Maltings on the invitation of Sir Peter Pears.
Nancy Evans OBE was an English mezzo-soprano who had a notable career as a concert and opera singer. She is particularly associated with Benjamin Britten who wrote his song cycle, A Charm of Lullabies, and the role of Nancy in his opera Albert Herring for her.
Michael Zev Gordon is a British composer of Jewish descent.
Andrew Hugh Michael Maguire was an Irish violinist, leader, concertmaster and principal player of the London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1962–1967), leader of the Melos Ensemble and the Allegri Quartet, a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, and violin tutor to the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.
The Britten-Pears Orchestra, formerly The Snape Maltings Training Orchestra, is the youth orchestra of the Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme at Snape Maltings, run by the Aldeburgh Festival.
The Britten–Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies was founded in 1977 in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, following the success both of the master classes held for singers by Peter Pears from 1972, and of the subsequent courses for string players.
Britten Pears Arts is a pioneering cultural charity based in Suffolk, England. It emerged from the determination of composer Benjamin Britten and his partner, singer Peter Pears, to ensure that everyone could enjoy and experience music. Britten Pears Arts aims to continue their legacy to develop talent, celebrate their heritage and engage with communities. The organisation uses music to transform people's lives, to bring communities together and enhance daily life.
Joseph Phibbs is an English composer of orchestral, choral and chamber music. He has also composed for theatre, both in the UK and Japan. Since 1998 he has written regularly to commissions for Festivals, for private sponsors, and for the BBC, which has broadcast premieres of his orchestral and chamber works from the Proms and elsewhere. His works have been given premieres in Europe, the United States and the Far East, and he has received prestigious awards, including most recently a British Composer Award, and a Library of Congress Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation Award. Many of his works have been premiered by leading international musicians, including Dame Evelyn Glennie, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Sakari Oramo, Vasily Petrenko, Gianandrea Noseda, and the Belcea Quartet.
The Red House, in the coastal town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, England, was the home of the composer Benjamin Britten, from 1957 until his death in 1976, and of his partner, Peter Pears, until the latter's death in 1986. It is now one of two headquarters for Britten Pears Arts, with the other being Snape Maltings Concert Hall.
David Myerscough-Jones FCSD was an English film, television, and theatre production designer. He spent the majority of his career with BBC TV, as well as in the theatre and opera production companies. He worked with the British composer Benjamin Britten on Peter Grimes, Owen Wingrave, and Die Winteriesse.
Jonathan Alistair James Reekie has been the Director of Somerset House Trust since 2014. During this time the renovation of the historic site has been completed including the launch of Somerset House Studios, helping establish Somerset House as “London’s Working Arts Centre”, home to a creative community in central London. Reekie’s overseen the expansion of the cultural programme including PJ Harvey’s Recording in Progress with Artangel, Björk Digital, Big Bang Data, Perfume, Get Up Stand Up Now. In 2019 Reekie co-curated with Sarah Cook, the exhibition 24/7, a wake up call to a non-stop world, based on the book by Jonathan Crary.
