Thomas WRIGHT
Tom Wright is a math professor, saxophonist, and composer at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
As a musician, he is the director of the Spartanburg Jazz Ensemble, the co-director of the Project X Big Band, and a co-founder and former composer-in-residence for the Greenville Jazz Collective. He has shared the stage with Grammy and Pulitzer winners and has played on all seven continents, and his quartet released a travel-inspired quartet album entitled Notes from the Journey in 2019.
As a mathematician, he received a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 2009. He currently specializes in the field of number theory, and he is the author of numerous papers in that field as well as the book Trolling Euclid: An Irreverent Guide to Nine of Mathematics’ Most Important Problems.
Tom Wright at Blues Boulevard Jazz – Greenville, SC
May 21, 2026, 14:15–14:45
A Jazz Adaptation of E. A. Poe’s story Masque of the Red Death
In this paper, I will discuss my recently premiered work, a jazz adaptation (with narration and band response) of Edgar Allan Poe’s 1842 story, Masque of the Red Death. I will discuss the aims of the piece, the musical ideas and inspirations, the process of composition, and the challenges of adapting Poe’s words to a narration that can accompany a jazz ensemble. I will also show clips of the recent premiere of this work by the Project X Big Band in Greenville, South Carolina.