Bryan Wright

Bryan S. Wright, Ph.D., is a pianist and Grammy-nominated musicologist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he teaches at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also the founder and executive producer of Rivermont Records, a label specializing in ragtime and jazz.

A native of Lynchburg, Virginia, Bryan first showed musical interest as a toddler and began classical piano lessons with Sandra Horwege at age 5, adding violin lessons two years later. In his early teens, Bryan became keenly interested in ragtime, jazz, and related styles, adding pieces by Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, and others to his repertoire. By 15 he was host of a popular weekly radio program, Sunday Night Nostalgia, heard in Central Virginia over WLVA, WVLR, and WLQE. The program featured big bands, vintage jazz, and “old-time radio” dramas (with occasional live in-studio dramas that Bryan directed). As an undergraduate at the College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia), he furthered his piano studies with Christine Niehaus, taking time to host a weekly ragtime radio program, Elite Syncopations, on WCWM. (The program provided the groundwork for the first 24-hour internet ragtime radio station, Elite Syncopations Radio, which Bryan operated from 2003 to 2010.)

In addition to performances as far afield as France, Japan, and Argentina, Bryan has been a featured pianist and lecturer at some of the most prestigious jazz and ragtime festivals across the United States, including the JVC Jazz Festival (New York City), the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival (Sedalia, Missouri), and the West Coast Ragtime Festival (Sacramento, California). He has written articles for the Grove Dictionary of American Music, Oxford Bibliographies Online, and presented papers at both local and national meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) and the American Musicological Society (AMS).

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