Biography of george wright organist music

Biography of george wright organist music: George Wright was an American musician,

George Wright learned to play the piano at an early age from his mother who was a private music teacher. One of his first projects was installing a theater organ there, where it still remains and plays. In he had his first playing job at a Chinese night club in Oakland called the Shanghai Terrace Bowl which boasted a 2-manual, 6-rank Wurlitzer; the show was broadcast nightly by an Oakland radio station.

He also conducted his own orchestra on the Robert Q. Lewis show and began a seven-year stint playing in a trio with Charles Magnante, accordionist, and Tony Mottola, guitarist, for an NBC show sponsored by the Prudential Insurance Company. In , he signed on as house organist for the Paramount Theater in New York. There, he played with many of the great jazz and pop artists of the time, including Frank Sinatra, Frankie Laine and Ella Fitzgerald.

During his early years at ABC, Wright continued to perform live theater. Though live theater variety shows had pretty much died by the late s, Wright developed an avid, if cult-sized, following during this time and was able to fill big variety-era theaters long after their main audiences had shriveled. Wright became renowned among theater organists for his pyrotechnic virtuosity, devising novel effects and pulling off lightning fast stop changes.

In the s, Wright became the studio organist and eventual musical director for the soap opera General Hospital. Wright remained with the show even after it switched from live broadcasts to video tape in the s, and as musical cues modernized, he even began composing piano arrangements for GH' s underscore.