Bri’Ann Wright has over 18 years of experience teaching music in various capacities that include private lessons; extracurricular music and music theater classes; pk-12 school music; preschool; and graduate and undergraduate education and music education majors. Wright recently graduated with a Ph.D. from University of Maryland in College Park in music education with a focus on education policy and program evaluation. Wright completed her Ed.M. and M.A. degrees in music and music education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Wright’s teaching has been focused in the general music track, combining multiple pedagogies, creativity, and popular music in her curriculum writing. Wright also spent much of her Masters’ degrees focused on early childhood music development and providing developmentally appropriate musical experiences for young people. Wright’s research interests include music and arts education policy, specifically arts program and policy design and evaluation. She is also interested in creativity, pedagogy, and issues of equity and social justice in the music classroom.
Wright spent seven years in New York City, where she taught popular music to middle school students in East Harlem. She also was a founding member of a Brooklyn preschool, where she
designed curriculum and summer programs; established community partnerships, and served as lead preschool teacher. Wright also built a local performing arts salon, Full Moon Salon, that sought to bring together artists, audience, and dialogue. Wright’s professional experiences in New York established her curriculum writing and program design foundation, rooted in democratic teaching, creative practices, and popular music.
Wright’s research acumen includes quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods work, and her burgeoning research agenda has and continues to evaluate arts programs and policies, and
interrogate the links between school music and non-achievement outcomes, like engagement, well-being, and enrollment. Wright’s paper, Impact Evaluation of the Turnaround Arts Pilot
Program: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis, was recently published in Arts Education Policy Review. Wright’s research has been accepted and presented at many national and international
conferences including AERA, NAfME, SMTE, ISME, APME, Desert Skies, among others.
Wright enjoys throwing pottery, traveling, and Friday night dance parties with her partner, Peter, and two children, Magnus and Georgia.
Contact
Teaching
Affiliate Artist
Popular Music Pedagogy
Education
PhD in Music Education — University of Maryland College Park
Master of Education in Education Policy — Columbia University Teachers College
Master of Arts in Music & Music Education — Columbia University Teachers College
Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance — Augsburg University