Our Current President
Barbara Wright-Pryor, contralto, is beginning her tenth year as President of Chicago Music Association, Branch #1 of the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc.(NANM) in which she holds membership for life. She completed undergraduate studies at Roosevelt University, Chicago State University and Chicago Conservatory of Music where she majored in voice performance, oratorio and conducting with Edwin Kemp and Madame Sonia Sharnova. She received the Master of Arts degree (magna cum laude) from Roosevelt University. In 1999, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree.
Ms. Wright-Pryor has made frequent appearances on the concert stage as a recitalist and as a soloist of oratorio, including performances of Sir Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time (Midwest premiere, 1981), Rossini’s Stabat Mater, J. S. Bach’s Cantata No. 54 for Contralto and Orchestra, Christmas Oratorio, Mass in B Minor, Magnificat, and St. Matthew Passion ; Requiem by Mozart and Verdi; Saul of Tarsus by Betty Jackson King; Mendelssohn’s Elijah and St. Paul; and Handel’s Messiah. She has had compositions and arrangements dedicated to her by composers, Rollo Dilworth, Barry K. Elmore Betty Jackson King and Robert L. Morris and has performed with members of the Lyric Opera and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the South Shore Philharmonic, the South Side Family Chamber Orchestra and String Quartet, the Chicago Teen Ensemble and the Chicago Park District Orchestra. As a crossover artist, she has performed extensively in the sacred and popular genres.
Ms. Wright-Pryor has the distinction of serving as choral director for Duke Ellington for his 1968 “Sacred Concert” held at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago. In May, 1998 she won rave reviews as producer/director and vocalist for the revival of Ellington’s 1963 musical My People with choreographer Mercedes Ellington at Chicago’s New Regal Theatre for the 16th International Duke Ellington Conference.
In May, 1998, she was appointed to the Community Advisory Council of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO). She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the training orchestra for the CSO and the CSO’s Artistic Planning Committee.
In addition to a career in music, Ms. Wright-Pryor, a former counselor-educator with the Chicago Public Schools, is certificated by the National Board of Certified Counselors and holds the position of Adjunct Professor at DePaul University. The Society for the Advancement of the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature of The Chicago Public Library presented her with its 1999 Award for Outstanding Performance and Leadership in Music and Education.
Ms. Wright-Pryor is classical music critic and columnist for The Chicago Crusader (established 1940); Vice President of the Advisory Council of South Shore Cultural Center and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. She is soloist at Northfield Community Church in Northfield, IL, and St. Mark United Methodist Church, Chicago. She is married to George M. Williams, organist/ conductor.