Orville Wright, who died last Thurs­day in Mass­a­chu­setts, USA, start­ed his mu­si­cal train­ing at a very ear­ly age in Trinidad & To­ba­go tak­ing pi­ano lessons, in ad­di­tion to sit­ting the As­so­ci­at­ed Roy­al School of Mu­sic ex­ams, reach­ing Grade VI­II in both prac­ti­cal and the­o­ry. While study­ing clas­si­cal mu­sic, he de­vel­oped a flair for play­ing ca­lyp­so, and thus be­gan his non-clas­si­cal mu­sic track.

Wright left Trinidad in 1970 to fur­ther his ed­u­ca­tion and stud­ied ar­rang­ing and com­po­si­tion at the Berklee Col­lege of Mu­sic in Boston; he grad­u­at­ed in 1974. Soon af­ter he be­gan a 28-year af­fil­i­a­tion with that in­sti­tu­tion; first as a fac­ul­ty mem­ber for 13 years, and then as chair of the en­sem­ble de­part­ment for 15 years.

While teach­ing at Berklee, he played key­board ac­com­pa­ni­ment for a num­ber of Broad­way shows that were play­ing in Boston at the time, in­clud­ing The Wiz, The Best Lit­tle Whore­house in Texas, and Cats. Wright was al­so adept in the play­ing of the steel­pan and taught a steel­band class at Berklee dur­ing his tenure.

He wrote arrange­ments for a num­ber of US-based ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, most no­tably King Welling­ton, and led his own quin­tet in Boston for 15 years. While at Berklee, he led a team of fel­low fac­ul­ty mem­bers in per­for­mances and class­es at the Pol­ish Jazz Camp near War­saw, Poland, be­tween 1990 and 1992. He trav­elled ex­ten­sive­ly, teach­ing and play­ing in South Africa, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, and Puer­to Ri­co.

He record­ed an al­bum in Japan as a mem­ber of the Berklee All-Stars. From 1992 to 2002, Wright served as a con­sul­tant to Pan Trin­ba­go. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od he re­viewed and rewrote the cri­te­ria for steel­band com­pe­ti­tions in Trinidad. He al­so served as the chief ad­ju­di­ca­tor for the Pan is Beau­ti­ful and Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions.