Mary C. Wright was born June 6, 1960, in Cleveland, Ohio. She received a Bachelor of Music in music theory from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1985, and a Master of Fine Arts in music composition from the California Institute of the Arts in 1988. Her composition teachers include John Harbison, Paul Koonce, Mel Powell, Morton Feldman, Morton Subotnick, Stephen Mosko, Eleanor Hovda, and Paul Lansky. Ms. Wright is currently a doctoral student at Princeton University. The greater part of Mary Wright's compositional output is instrumental chamber music. By not aligning herself with any particular aesthetic “camp”, she has maintained a unique and original voice. Nevertheless, her frequent subtle references to vernacular music and the use of theatrical elements have enabled her to appeal to a diverse audience.
Ms. Wright's music has been performed by the Kronos Quartet, the California Ear Unit, Bang On A Can Allstars, New York New Music Ensemble, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. She has received commissions from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, the Meet the Composer/Readers Digest Commissioning Program in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund, and ASCAP/Bang On A Can (In Memory of John Cage). She has received awards from the International League of Women Composers, ASCAP (Young Composers Award), and won the first Margaret Blackburn Memorial Competition.
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