Don Wright (composer)

Don Wright, (September 6, 1908 - June 27, 2006) was a Canadian composer, musician, educator and philanthropist. He was a successful Canadian musician and popular music composer during his career from the 1930s to the 1960s and later became known for his large charitable donations and projects to fund music education in Canada. Early life Wright was born in Strathroy, Ontario, in 1908. His father, James Wright, was a known business man in the area who started the Wright Piano Co., which produced and sold upright and grand pianos. At an early age, Wright began studying the cello and trumpet and quickly started to show talent, winning a national gold medal for trumpet performance at age 14. Wright Brothers’ Orchestra With three of his brothers (Clark on Alto Sax, Ernest on Banjo, and William on Drums) Don organized the Wright Brothers’ Orchestra, which performed jazz and swing music from 1922 to 1935 in dance halls across Ontario. The band played three summers from 1922 to 1925 at Brights Grove Pavilion in Sarnia, Ontario, and during this time Don was beginning to display his talents as arranger and finding out how to produce big band sounds with smaller instrumentation. During the su