Memories

Following is a letter written by the orchestra director out at Pomona college, when he found out about Gordon's passing. At the end is a link where people can hear the piece that Gordon arranged for guitar and orchestra.

Hello Orchestra, On its November 2003 program, the PCO performed a harpsichord work called Fandango, attributed to the baroque composer Antonio Soler, in an arrangement for guitar and small orchestra done by Gordon Wright. Jack Sanders was our guitar soloist, and ours were the permiere performances of the arrangement.A few current members of the orchestra were involved in that piece, including Abby Browning, Eric Tang, Alma Zook, and Elicia Whittlesey. Others, including Debra Hurwitz, Jonathan Wright (no relation), Corinna Cook, Lucie McGee, Hollie Lohff, and Don Lawrence, played on the same program (which included Copland's Appalachian Spring and the Ives Second Symphony) but were not assigned to that piece. I thought you should know that Mr. Wright passed away last week at his home in Alaska, at the age of 72. During his career he was active as a conductor, founded multiple orchestras, and championed neglected composers. He attended our performances of his arrangement and was enthusiastic and friendly throughout his visit. The arrangement of Fandango was colorful, effective, and fun to perform. If you would like to hear the PCO's rendition -- still the only live performances of it, so far as I know -- go to http://www.music.pomona.edu/orchestra/fandango.mp3

Gordon could conduct Mahler as if he were channeling the Maestro himself. He found added musical inspiration at the concerts far beyond anything we produced at a rehearsal. Playing in the pit orchestra for FLOT (Fairbanks Light Opera Theater) he jotted down a new name for the group in German: Fairbanks Leicht Oper Gesellschaft : FLOG. We shared many a wonderful potluck dinner with him at his cabin when a visiting soloist was treated to a special night in the Alaskan woods. This always included a bit of a nighttime trek through the spruce forest, as there was no road right to Gordon's door. Even in that rustic setting he had his generator-operated stereo and extensive record collection (and TV!!). A history buff, Gordon told the most wonderful stories about composers' lives and deaths. Every time I'm walking my dog, I'm reminded that the composer Wallingford Rieger met an untimely end when his dog wrapped the leash around his master's legs, tripped him and he hit his head on the ground (a sidewalk, presumably). The tale of Anton Webern's demise obviously impressed others in the ACO as well. On a tour to Kenai, two members of the wind section who were not playing in a particular Webern piece, proceeded to don theater costumes they found backstage and act out his accidental shooting death as he lit a cigarette at night on his porch during a blackout in Europe during the war. His favorite line at the end of every fall ACO tour (especially the airborne ones): We walk away from another one. Gordon's dedication to the orchestras was all-consuming. In addition to the conducting and musical concerns, he spent huge amounts of time considering personnel matters, fundraising and publicity. A detail and list kind of guy, he also compiled the ACO roommate list every fall, and would never divulge his rational behind the assignments. As the founder of the ACO and staunch supporter of the FSO, Gordon returned from time to time to hear the orchestra and visit with friends. We all thought his visits would continue indefinitely, I guess.

I am Jim Waters, UW physics grad student decades ago. Recently a friend returned from a visit to Fairbanks, and I remembered receiving many years ago from an old friend in Madison a clipping about Gordon in the Arctic. I went online and found Gordon's obituaries and this nice website.

I spent countless hours in both of the Madison book stores and paid several visits to the Wright home. My favorite memory was the Hauskonzert put on by Gordon and Inga, with large chamber works played by friends. I recall Spohr and Saint-Saëns on the program. After the scheduled works were over and the beer flowed, the musicians started fooling around. Several wanted to play a Mozart flute quartet, but the flautist had departed. Dewayne Craddock took up the flute part on his oboe, attempting to play it transversely.

1985 Composer John Luther Adams (www.johnlutheradams.com) of Fairbanks was planning to picked up by Gordon Wright at the Anchorage airport. When Gordon didn't show, Adams called Wright's neighbors, and they found Gordon under the birch tree that grows through the deck of his cabin. It seemed an appropriate place for him to be, there on the deck of the cabin with a view of the waters of Turnagain Arm. Adam's new work, Dark Waves, was performed by the Anchorage Symphony February 17th. Gordon had planned to attend. Instead, John dedicated the first performance of Dark Waves to Gordon. In John's words: "Gordon told me several times about a piece he intended to write, inspired by the sea at Timber Cove, California, where he's been spending his winters in recent years. Whenever he talked about this piece, he spoke rhapsodic, poetic words. And I always told him: 'You should write it!' "The week before the premiere of Dark Waves, I gave Gordon his copy of the score. He looked it over for a few minutes, looked me in the eye and said: "Well. I don't have to write my Timber Cove piece...You've written it for me!" "So although he never heard it in the air. He heard the new piece in his mind's ear. And he seemed to like what he heard."

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Gordon Wright was the friend of a lifetime. For some thirty years he and I shared our two great passions: music and nature. Gordon was my musical collaborator, my fellow environmentalist, and my next-door neighbor. Along with my dear wife Cindy, he was my best camping buddy. Last spring at our annual tundra camp, Gordon and I talked as we always did about life and death, about the fate of our human species, and the meaning of it all. Gordon had little use for religion, which he held accountable for much of the intolerance and suffering of humanity. (I can't say that I disagree). Yet although he might scoff at the notion, Gordon had faith. Like the landscapes of the North that he loved so deeply, Gordon was expansive. He gave refuge. He embodied myth. His spirit lives on in so many ways, in so many people, in so many places. And I know he'll be with us again on the tundra this spring. I wouldn't presume to speak for Gordon. But I offer these lines in his honor.

Remembering Gordon: Gordon loomed large in my life and mind during the years I played in the flute section of the FSO under his baton (January 1979 until he retired). It was my first experience playing in an orchestra and I felt incredibly fortunate for the opportunity, and often terrified in the rehearsals. Although I grew to love Gordon dearly, enjoyed his humor enormously, and appreciated the incredible experiences he made possible for the Arctic Chamber Orchestra, always lurking near the surface was the knowledge that a few critical words from him could intimidate me completely. Perhaps we were paranoid, but it seemed to the flute section that we were held to some higher standard than the rest of the orchestra. Whenever we had a piece with a busy flute part, we felt certain that we were going to have to play our parts alone in the rehearsal. This had the beneficial effect of making us practice our tushes off and meet for frequent sectionals, more than any time since then, but didn't seem to get Gordon off our case. In contrast, Gordon seemed remarkably patient when the ACO was touring in China and there was a piccolo solo in a piece for solo clarinet (Ted DeCorso) and orchestra which I couldn't play for the life of me. It wasn't even difficult, and I could nail it over and over when I was warming up or practicing, but every time we came to that spot in a performance there was silence, or some weird stuff that WASN'T the solo. The one time Gordon said anything piercing about my woeful solo was when the orchestra was on the way to tour a polyester factory, and I offered my opinion that "Reznicek is to good music as polyester is to silk." Of course, that may not have been the best thing to say to the man who was probably the world expert on Reznicek, and it seemed quite restrained that his response was a grumbled, "Just play that piccolo solo, Sandra." (For the record, at our final concert of the China tour, in Shanghai, I played the solo correctly. Apparently this was so disconcerting that at least one violinist lost her place!) I will always be grateful to Gordon for his dedication to sharing music. The impact this had on me was the unique experience of playing great, and even not-so-great, orchestral pieces. But his far wider impact was in the towns and villages of Alaska where the Arctic Chamber Orchestra performed for people who had never heard a live classical concert; and in the Fairbanks audience who benefited from Gordon's development of the Fairbanks Symphony and founding of the Arctic Chamber Orchestra; and most of all in the hearts of the musicians who played in his orchestras. Sandy Clark

I'm Tom Watrous, for many seasons a member of the cello section of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Now retired, I've enjoyed reading Gordon's website, and as I know next-to-nothing of his Alaskan career, I thought I might contribute some recollections of knowing and working with Gordon in Madison, Wisconsin.

In the early 1960's Gordon founded the Madison Summer Symphony Orchestra, which we all knew as the MSSO. My older brother, a violist, was a early member of this group, and it became a dream of mine to join someday, too. I recall going down to Gordon's miraculous store one day, called Wright's Book Shop, as I must have requested an audition. I played something for solo cello, most likely one of the Bach solo suites. I must have flailed away with the excessive enthusiasm of youth.

When I had finished, Gordon said: "Do you ever do any work with a metronome...? What about scales and arpeggios...?"

I replied: "Oh, yeah...there's all that stuff, but what's really important is the emotion and expression."

Gordon snapped at me: Don't give me that crap....

Of course, he was absolutely right.... There was no place for such playing in Bach, turning the music into an indulgent rhapsody, to say nothing of the required style in a tightly-knit chamber orchestra. In spite of this, one night the phone rang.... I said hello, and a voice said: "This is your big chance." And so my tenure with the MSSO began....

Concerts at that time were given on the campus of Edgewood College, not far from Madison's lovely Vilas Park. We played on the back steps of one of the buildings, facing east, which was a real blessing, as it kept us out of the sun. Out from the concert venue, however, was an open field, where the audience sat, and behind that, some sort of dormitory. Whenever we would play a piece with a loud ending, and particularly if there was a short final chord, this chord would fly out across the field, hit the dormitory, and come blasting back at everyone. Lovely setting, ridiculous acoustical reality.

Thanks to my dear mother, who saved a number of the MSSO programs, I know I played with Gordon from about 1964 to 1967. I wish I could remember more from those years, but I do recall what I think was a world premiere of a suite for jazz saxophone and strings by the folk-orientated composer Alec Wilder. The soloist was the famous Zoot Sims. I remember Gordon asking Zoot about tempos, etc., and all we ever heard in return from Zoot was a grunt. I don't recall him ever uttering a single word in recognizable English.

Also during those years was the advent of Michael Davis, a wonderful player and a true gentleman. I was very interested to read that he later played the Reznicek concerto with Gordon in those recording projects.

A word about Wright's Book Shop. It was a true mecca of sheet music and books, and going there was a miraculous stroll in a musical wonderland. Gordon would put his business sticker on each item, and I still come across these now and then, which brings back such fine memories. When Gordon decided to move to Alaska, he closed the Shop. We were all in shock and I heard stories of musicians getting down on their knees begging Gordon not to leave. But, as many of us know, Gordon was a man of great resolve, and there was nothing to be done.