{"id":401,"date":"2009-10-29T12:42:56","date_gmt":"2009-10-29T16:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/music\/?page_id=401"},"modified":"2025-06-02T11:30:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T15:30:31","slug":"wright-james","status":"publish","type":"cu_people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/music\/people\/wright-james\/","title":{"rendered":"James Wright"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On sabbatical leave, Winter 2024. <\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

James Wright completed a Ph.D. in 2002 at McGill University, where his dissertation on Schoenberg and Wittgenstein was awarded the Governor-General\u2019s Gold Medal, the first time in McGill University\u2019s history that this distinction had been conferred upon a musicologist. Dr. Wright\u2019s primary research areas encompass music philosophy and aesthetics, music perception, film music, 20th-century music history, post-tonal music theory and analysis, dance and music, and the history of music theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His first book, Schoenberg, Wittgenstein, and the Vienna Circle<\/i> (Bern: Verlag Peter Lang, 2006, 2nd ed\u2019n 2007) received a Lewis Lockwood Award from the American Musicological Society. His second book, Schoenberg\u2019s Chamber Music, Schoenberg\u2019s World <\/i>(Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2009), co-edited by Carleton Emeritus Professor Alan Gillmor, was described by reviewer Frank J. Oteri (Chamber Music America<\/i>) as \u201ca book that reveals that Schoenberg\u2019s legacy lives on in his chamber music; a substantive volume that fills an important void.\u201d His monograph They Shot, He Scored: The Life and Music of Eldon Rathburn <\/i>(Montreal: McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press, 2019), examines the life and work of a fascinating and prolific Canadian composer who \u2013 in addition to producing a large catalog of orchestral and chamber works \u2013 wrote more than 275 film scores during a distinguished forty-year career as a staff composer with the National Film Board of Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, James Wright celebrates the launch of a new book, co-edited by Alexis Luko (University of Victoria): Monstrosity, Identity, and Music: Mediating Uncanny Creatures from Frankenstein to Videogames<\/i> (London & New York: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2022), and will host an international conference titled “Music and Antifascism: Reflections on the Past and Possibilities in the Present” (https:\/\/musicandantifascism.wordpress.com\/<\/a>).  His published compositions are listed at https:\/\/jkennethwright.com\/compositions\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, James Wright was named the University of Toronto Louis Applebaum Distinguished Visiting Professor in Composition (https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/2019\/10\/music-professor-named-the-louis-applebaum-distinguished-visitor-in-composition-2019-20-at-the-university-of-toronto\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selected Publications<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Alexis Luko and James Wright (eds.), Monstrosity, Identity, and Music: Mediating Uncanny Creatures from Frankenstein to Videogames<\/em> (London & New York: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James K. Wright with Allyson Rogers, They Shot, He Scored: The Life and Music of Eldon Rathburn <\/i>(Montreal: McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press, 2019)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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James K. Wright and Alan M. Gillmor, eds. Schoenberg\u2019s Chamber Music, Schoenberg\u2019s World <\/i>(Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2009).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James K. Wright, Schoenberg, Wittgenstein, and the Vienna Circle<\/i> (Bern: Verlag Peter Lang, 2006, 2nd ed\u2019n 2007).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Media Appearances<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

CBC ‘All in a Day<\/a>‘<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A celebration of the 100th anniversary of Eldon Rathburn\u2019s birth, and we marked the occasion with the first recording session in preparation of a forthcoming CD titled \u201cEldon\u2019s House of Jazz\u201d (in Normand Glaude\u2019s Morning Anthem Studios in Cumberland, ON).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CBC ‘Ottawa Morning’<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the launch of the Carillon Program at Carleton (March 28, 2011).<\/p>\n\n\n\n