Wright was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1942.[1] She earned a bachelor's degree in music from the University of Missouri, a master's degree in music from Pius XII Academy in Florence, a master's degree in music from the University of Missouri, and a doctoral degree in historical musicology from New York University.[1][2] She was the second African American to earn a doctorate in music, after Eileen Southern, her mentor and collaborator.[1]
Wright served as an assistant professor at Harvard University's Department of Afro-American studies from 1976 to 1981.[1] In 1981, she file a suit against Harvard with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, accusing the institution of race and gender discrimination.[3] That year, she joined the faculty at the College of Wooster, where she was named a professor of music and Josephine Lincoln Morris Professor of Black Studies.[1] As of 2020, she continued to hold this position.[4] She has made a name for herself as she has Wright's scholarship.
Wright is recognized as an expert in African-American music, women in music, black women's history, and Western music history.[1][2][4] With Eileen Southern, she co-authored African-American Traditions in Song, Sermon, Tale, and Dance, 1600s-1920 (1990) and Images: Iconography of Music in African-American Culture, 1770s-1920s (2000). Wright served as editor of American Music from 1994 to 1997.[1] In 1997, she was named to the national artistic directorate of the American Classical Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Cincinnati.[5]
In 2015, the Society for American Music presented Wright with a Lifetime Achievement Award.[2] In 2019, she was elected an honorary member of the American Musicological Society "as a pioneer in the study and teaching of women's and African-Americans' participation in musical life."[4]
