John L. ("Leslie") Wright

John Wright, whose reviews for MusicWeb-International appear under his middle name, Leslie, was born in 1943 and spent the first twenty-seven of his years in the state of Wisconsin. His love for classical music goes back to his early childhood, as he recalls listening over and over to Peter and the Wolf on his parents’ 78’s. He pursued this interest through high school and college with an ever-growing collection of LPs and later CDs. Although he took piano lessons from age 7, which he continued through college, and played trombone in the high school band, his active participation in music throughout his life has been and continues to be as a choral singer. His real love for music, though, is as a listener and scholar. In college he majored in Russian language and literature, completing his PhD in 1973, and managed to take all the music courses available to non-music majors. He had the great privilege to sing in the University of Wisconsin’s Slavic Choir throughout his college years. In 1965 he discovered the music of Leoš Janáček and has had a passion for it ever since. Although his tastes are really catholic, he has shown a preference for twentieth century composers—from Janáček to Ligeti and beyond. While never pursuing a musical career—his career has been in teaching, translating, and analyzing things Russian—music has always been a "first love." He is married to a psychotherapist (retired), who is also a chorister, and their two children and their spouses are all involved career-wise in music in some form or another. John and his wife currently reside in northern Virginia where they have lived for the past 32 years—except for two wonderful years (1980-82) spent in the UK near Henley-on-Thames.