Martha Wright: Uncommon Educator

Martha Ann Wright- Music Educator

Once a music teacher in the Shelby County School System (the Greater Memphis Tennessee area), Martha Wright founded a private after school music program in 1994, the West Tennessee Youth Chorus, to give more children the opportunity to have quality music instruction. Two years later the West Tennessee Children’s Chorus, a younger training choir was added by demand.

A proponent of public school education, the WTCC/WTYC was founded to augment public and private music programs. As a school teacher, Martha Wright worked to affect mainstream programs and shore up music excellence in the middle and junior high school grades where she felt it was most wanting.

The WTYC, established by Wright as a touring choir has quickly gained national and international attention. The WTYC performed for a crowd of 15,000 for the Kiwanis International Convention in 1997.

In 2000, The West TN Youth Chorus was selected as the featured children’s choir for the nationally televised National Pageant of Peace—Presidential Christmas Tree Lighting with President and First Lady Clinton officiating.(http://clinton6.nara.gov/2000/12/2000-12/11-remarks-by-the-president-at-the-pageant-of-peace )

Producer Bob Johnson related in iCom Magazine-Video News, February 2001 (http://www.icommag.com/february-2001/video-news.html) “after weeks of reviewing videotapes of various choirs from around the country, that he chose the WTYC from Memphis to perform. Each year the selected choir must be able to accompany other performers, when requested, in addition to their own selections.” The WTYC performed and shared the stage with the Cast of Fosse, Welsh soprano Charlotte Church, and county singers Billy Gilman and Kathy Mattea.

After performing with the US Navy Band, then chief composer and arranger of the Band Bryan Kidd wrote “It is with pleasure that I write of the exceptional talent, skill, and musicianship of the West TN Youth Chorus. What distinguished this group were that they were very strong musically, thoroughly trained and prepared, exceptional disciplined, “quick studies” in learning new material, flexible, patient, and consistently professional performers. The success to this year’s Pageant of Peace was due in no small part to their ability to consistently “deliver the goods and to do so in a professional and pleasing manner.”

The West TN Youth Chorus was invited a second time as the featured children’s choir for the National Pageant of Peace in 2004, this time with President George and First Lady Laura Bush as officiators. President Bush, who greeted the young singers and Wright after the event stated “You are real good.” (see attached photo from whitehouse.gov)
The WTYC performed with the US Marine Band celebrities from different genres. A clip of the WTYC performing “O Holy Night” with operatic tenor Carl Tanner can be viewed on his website. (carltanner.com see audio and video clips—2004 Pageant of Peace)

The WTYC also performed with country singers Marty Stuart and Connie Smith and shared the stage with Reverend Robert Schuller for the Pageant of Peace, who after hearing the WTYC, extended an invitation for them to perform at the Crystal Cathedral.

Bob Johnson, Producer, upon addressing a crowd of supporters of the Pageant, introduced Wright with the following “The WTYC is a very talented group of children, but behind this wonderful choir is a very talented director.”

The WTYC was acknowledged by Pope Benedict during his first appearance at Vatican Square during their 2005 tour to Italy. The WTYC has performed at the Basilica San Marco, Venice, and the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris.

Joe Fab, producer: “Unbelievable! You and the children brought so much to the event again!”

Kallen Esperian, operatic soprano: (kallenesperian.com) “Your blend is incredible. I hope to be able to perform with you someday.

Nannette and Thomas Kinkade-Painter of Light: “Your children were wonderful!”

Marty Stuart: Martha Wright—she’s ok.I like working with her.”

Paul Chandler, owner of Resource Entertainment Group (regmemphis.com) This well-disciplined group of young musicians will lighten the heart with their youthful blend.”

Henry Leck, founder of the Indianapolis Children’s Choir: “The dedication and commitment to the higher education of the singing art of Martha Wright is evident in their performance.”
Willard Scott: “This talented group of children stole the show last night. Their director Martha Wright is a lovely woman in her own right.” (Introduction of the WTYC’s performance on The Today Show-Dec. 3, 2005)

Four years ago, Mrs. Wright began to combine both her skill-set of being both a musician and entrepreneur and contacts to put produce an International Choir Festival—featuring children’s choirs from various areas of the country. The Crossroads Children’s Chorus Festival, as it is now known, will take place in Nashville, Tennessee at the Gaylord Opryland Resort.

The CCCF has attracted top choirs from the choral world, top clinicians, international in flavor, and top celebrities representing various genres with which participating children’s choirs will sing. A classically trained mass children’s choir will be rehearsed by Martha Wright and other world-renowned artists and clinicians. The CCCF will provide a more personal opportunity for the children to ask questions and receive instruction from invited celebrities during Master Classes to be held during the week as well as individual choir concerts.

Stephen Hatfield, who is considered by many to be the foremost multi-cultural composer and clinician will be the guest conductor for the CCCF. He has been described by such main-stay choral authorities as Jean Ashworth Bartle as pure genius. The festival concert will culminate with a final concert of broad audience appeal, as celebrity performers assemble to add their authenticity and color to the performance, with repertoire such as Shenandoah and Danny Boy among other favorites.

Current participating choirs include Reverend Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral Academy Chorus and Contra Costa Children’s Chorus, both high-profile children’s choirs from California, Rapid City Children’s Chorus, SD, the Austin Children Choir, TX, and of course Martha Wright’s own West Tennessee Youth Chorus from the Mid-South. All of these choirs are heralded as among the best children’s choir programs and have similar classical roots as those espoused by Wright.

The Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville is the host residence of the CCCF, the worlds largest, non-gaming resort.

The final concert of the festival will be held on the Grand Ole Opry House, with celebrities such as Kallen Esperian-Pavoratti competition winner, Lawrence Hamilton, Broadway lead in Ragtime, and Ronnie Milsap, who has had 40 #1 hits. participating with the mass children’s chorus. This facility is recognized as one of the acoustics-friendly venues in the world today, let alone its fame and historicity.

While attending school at the University of Central Arkansas, Martha Wright was fortunate to have been a voice student of Dr. Martha Antolik and also studied with Doctor Anne Patterson, who had studied the Koda’ly method in depth while in studying in Hungary. Wright studied piano with Dr. Mark Hanson. Dr. Hansen is now the Music Department Chair at Boise State University.

Still, it was an earlier, high school choir director, Mr. Robert Taylor, who first exposed Martha to the use of sight reading with numbers. She had the experience of singing in Taylor’s award-winning choirs for three impressionable years.

Wright received her BME as a voice major and piano minor on an accompanying scholarship. With this solid music foundation on which to build, Ms. Wright has developed a method unique to herself which has proven effective as easily judged by the end-sound of any choir she directs.

Martha Wright’s philosophy of teaching and her record of producing fine choirs is rooted in her own educational experiences, as well as her vocal and other musical talents such as a fine ear and a crystal clear soprano voice with dead-on pitch; Ms. Wright has an undeniable track-record of producing extraordinary child and youth blends, using three and four part harmony. The literature she uses, is remarkably advanced, often on a par with college level music. But according to many of her students, Ms. Wright makes learning advanced pieces easy

Memphis is the home of Martha Wright’s music program--The West Tennessee Youth Chorus and The West Tennessee Youth Chorus. They each meet twice a week at the Cordova Center (The Historic Cordova School, just off of Sanga and Macon, in Cordova, a suburb of Memphis. The WTYC will be the host choir for the CCCF.

Martha Wright has six stated areas of emphasis for the WTYC/WTCC that she began with and which she has refined over three decades of teaching. First is her insistence on maintaining proper vocal technique. Although using what she learned as a classical soloist and choir participant, as well as her good fortune of having studied under several great college music instructors partially defines this term—Martha Wright defines “good vocal technique” as vocal methods that maximize pure tones, with outstanding intonation and pitch and proper breath support, while maintaining a healthy voice—that is without injuring singer’s vocal chords. Using improper technique can cause irreversible damage to vocal chords, ruining a voice forever.

Ms.Wright’s second area of emphasis used to train her choirs is sight-singing for the voice, which is essential for a singer. As Wright explains: Since our voices have no keys to touch, holes to cover, it helps the process of converting paper to sound by giving the pitch or interval a name.. For this, Martha Wright uses an age-old system of syllables.

The Solfege Syllables have long been used in Western Civilization as a means of teaching. Educators in Hungary, early in the Nineteenth Century and before, used this method of note-to-voice management in conjunction with folk hymns from their own native folk cultures, to teach sight-singing for the voice. Other similar methods have used the Arabic numbers to serve the same function. Martha was student to experts of both of these methods in a choir setting, as a youth and as a college student.

Part-singing is the third area of Wright’s teaching emphasis. Teaching choir-students how and when to sing harmonies and blending them in pitch, intonation, and breath-control to match as one synergistic voice is her goal with each student and with each choir. With an obvious ear to effortlessly pick out harmonies and express them with her own pleasant instrument undoubtedly helps her teach these principles. It also becomes just as apparent that her sharp ear quickly identifies discord and the source. She is then deftly able to show her students how to correct the mismatch in pitch and go on. So frequent and naturally does this process go on during rehearsals, that few if any students are offended. It is just part of the process that Ms. Wright uses, and seldom is anyone spared, until the blend is as good as it can be, within the allotted time. “Your group has an incredible blend” was Pavoratti competition winner Kallen Esperian’s response.

Ear-training, the fourth area of emphasis stressed by Martha Wright, as she teaches her choir students to sing, overlaps others, but describes a distinct skill of implementing the principles training the ear while learning to part sing and read music--the ability to correctly recognize notes as they are written and sung, so that they can be translated and reproduced into similar intended sounds. When one thinks about this process, it is easy to realize the complexities of the human brain that this can even be accomplished at all. Martha Wright teaches by example and mechanics how to do this to the maximum of each student’s abilities.

Fifth in her areas of emphasis is Performance. Martha Wright’s opinion is that if the basics are taught properly, the great venues will follow. This has proven itself over and again—as her choirs have been invited to the most coveted venues a children’s choir can aspire to. It is, of course, all about presentation of sound.

Or is it? Martha’s sixth area of emphasis is Service. She feels that youth crave an innate need to be needed and to be a positive part of the communities in which they live. It is so often all about taking. But those who share the gift of their voices especially as melded and honed to a fine tune is an extraordinary gift, which is universally enjoyed by those who hear choirs rehearsed by Martha Wright. Since hers are not singular programs for soloist, teamwork and selflessness is instilled in her choirs. Although many if not all of her students have solo quality voices, vying for the few solo parts by students and their parents are not looked upon with favor. However, any student who stays with Martha
Wright’s program for four or five years, will have opportunity to sing solos, as their abilities become polished and maximized while within the choir.

Former students:
Ashley Cole, winner of several talent and pageant competitions: “Every goal Ms. Wright sets, she achieves.”
Matthew Falkum: I give a large credit to Ms. Wright and the WTYC for my success as a singer and performer.

The underlying idea, according to Wright, is to provide the foundational setting, which can only be gained in a group setting, and let the discovery and invitation for solos to evolve from this all-important foundation. This philosophy has its merits as many of her more-tenured students win scholarships, competitions and accolades in their own rights as soloists in school, church, and community.

Again, as Martha Wright puts it, the one-ness of her choral training engenders a habit among participants to listen. This becomes a wonderful life-skill as it is generalized and incorporated into each child’s life.

Many of Martha Wright’s former choir students, whether from the West Tennessee Youth Chorus, West Tennessee Children’s Chorus, Church , Community, and School choirs provide a testament by attributing their continued vocal success and in many cases, social, career, and life-successes, to their participation in one or more of Ms. Wright’s choirs.

Martha Duckett Wright now lives near Memphis with her husband Doug.

http://www.uca.edu/

http://www.oake.org/

http://www.boisestate.edu/music/MusicDepartment/hansen.html

http://en. .org/wiki/Solfege

http://www.westtennesseeyouthchorus.com/

http://crossroadschildrenschorusfestival.com/Flash.htm

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