![\"Graham](\"http:\/\/newspress.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/graham-e1408978798907.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nGraham Wright was in love. But an exclusive relationship? In his twenties? In Boston? No. Wasn\u2019t going to happen. So Wright did what any red-blooded young man in the prime of his life would have\u2014he let chemistry down easy and started singing around.<\/p>\n
\u201cMIT is an intense place, and the people who are happy there are the ones who have that uniquely focused passion. They want to be doing chemistry and nothing else,\u201d Wright, who graduated from Furman in 2000 with a degree in chemistry and went immediately to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the goal of earning a Ph.D. in the subject, said. \u201cThose are the people who really thrive there. I was very interested in it, but when it really came down to it I needed to have time for music and other things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did those other things want him, though? That\u2019s often a rude awakening for the newly single, but it turns out Wright isn\u2019t like most who want to have time for music and other things.<\/p>\n
Just as talented in art as he is in science (he studied voice and trombone at Furman), Wright\u2019s move from Florence, South Carolina, to one of the most thriving metropolitan areas in the country would have been a success had he only carved out a singing career for himself\u2014which he did. There was something missing, however.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter a few years of working I kept hearing people say that there are not enough young professionals supporting the arts.\u201d Wright said. \u201cIf you really look at the bigger picture across all these different art forms, though, if you don\u2019t look just at the audience but behind the scenes\u2014the artists themselves . . . there are lots of people in their twenties and thirties supporting the arts. We have the highest percentage of eighteen-to-thirty-four-year-olds of any city in the country. We\u2019ve got the people, we\u2019ve got the interest, but these groups are really isolated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wright couldn\u2019t stop wondering what would happen if he put different art elements in the same room. What compounds would be created? So he built a lab called Opus Affair, and let the experiments begin.<\/p>\n
The reactions haven\u2019t stopped since.<\/p>\n
Founded in 2008, Opus Affair\u2019s initial goal was simple: Create a monthly social gathering for \u201cmusic, dance, theatre\u2014anything that might be construed as the fine arts,\u201d and invite anyone regardless of their involvement. The first gathering was held in a bar near Fenway Park because the owner knew it would be empty once the baseball game started, and he welcomed the business.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a gathering for opera and ballet fans a block from a Red Sox game,\u201d Wright remembers. \u201cAbout fifty people showed up.\u201d<\/p>\n
But word spread fast. \u201cThe whole reason it started was I was meeting these musicians and I\u2019d hear these concerts and I\u2019d hear fantastic music, but I might see ten people in the audience,\u201d Wright said. \u201cAnd on the other side people would come up to me and say, \u2018I just graduated and was really involved in the music scene or the theatre scene at my school, and now that I\u2019m new to town I don\u2019t know where to start. Can you help me find some interesting performances to see?\u2019 So let\u2019s connect these two people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Or, as is now the case, several thousand, which would be the number of members Opus Affair now boasts. Wright estimates that between 150 and 200 people show up at its monthly gatherings, and for the last two years the organization has put on \u201cThe Big Party,\u201d which is a perfect description of what is now one of Boston\u2019s most anticipated
\nsocial events.<\/p>\n
The 2013 version was a 1920s theme party at the same bar near Fenway, only this time the place was rented out and packed to fire code limits. \u201cIt\u2019s grown into something that has exceeded all of my expectations,\u201d Wright says. \u201cOne of the exciting trends in the fine arts world is there have been a lot of organizations which have recognized the need to reach out to these young professionals. They often operated totally independently, so one of my goals was to bring them together, all of these groups at once. Up to nine organizations participate. I can\u2019t claim that we are the cause of that, but it\u2019s nice to see that they\u2019re participating and our event has become kind of an annual count of the groups that are out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opus Affair does more than throw large soirees, however. At its core it\u2019s still about art, performance, and appreciation\u2014and finding new audiences. \u201cThe cocktail culture has become a big part of what we do. Around the time Opus Affair began there was a big resurgence of the classic cocktail movement,\u201d Wright says. \u201cIt\u2019s philosophically similar to the approach I have with this operation. They\u2019re creating new things inspired by history, which is what I would say that a classical musician does. It\u2019s good to be able to recreate it, but the best people are the ones who take this historical research and use it to create something that\u2019s new and alive now . . . a lot of our new members are coming from restaurants. People who are big foodies end up coming to our events, and they\u2019re the ones who end up in our audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opus Affair and chemistry studies at one of the most prestigious schools in the country can overshadow the fact that, when it comes down to it, Wright\u2019s biggest claim to fame is he\u2019s a tremendously talented artist himself. A bass-baritone, he has found success as a soloist with choral, orchestral, and opera groups that include the Boston Pops, Opera Company of Brooklyn, and the Boston Lyric Opera on top of his regular job at Boston University\u2019s Marsh Chapel as a choral scholar.<\/p>\n
\u201cEssentially we\u2019re like section leaders for the choir,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re there to help them learn style and different repertoire and help them train for the life of a professional musician in Boston and the life of a choral musician in general.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wright estimates that for about three years he did nothing but sing to make a living, though now he sings \u201cabout a third of the time.\u201d One of those gigs included being selected to help the Rolling Stones perform \u201cYou Can\u2019t Always Get What You Want\u201d when they came through town earlier in the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a heck of a gig,\u201d Wright said, though when asked if he was nervous he had an interesting take. \u201cI\u2019m always much more likely to be nervous at a big rehearsal than at a performance. At the rehearsal, meeting Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and working with their tech crew was far more nerve-racking for me than the performance. They\u2019re all there to have a good time, and they want you to be awesome. They\u2019re not there to be critical or tell you you\u2019re doing something wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s any advice Wright can give young musicians, that\u2019s it. \u201cThere\u2019s an epiphany that all performers need to have at some point, which is that the vast majority of people in the audience are there to have a good time and they want you to be great,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s very empowering as a performer. When I was younger I definitely didn\u2019t appreciate that.\u201d<\/p>\n
And speaking of younger, Wright is reminded every day of his days as a Paladin because he represents merely a third of the Furman alums at BU\u2019s Marsh Chapel. Scott Jarrett \u201997 is the director, while Justin Blackwell \u201905 is the associate director and organist. Though he didn\u2019t major in music, Wright was heavily involved in the department at Furman and credits his time there for helping him believe in his talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy choice of major had very little to do with planning job prospects. I was just going where my passion was,\u201d Wright says. \u201cI never really saw (music) as a career path for me when I was younger. I didn\u2019t think I was necessarily the world\u2019s greatest musician, so there might have been a self-confidence issue there. I also hadn\u2019t seen all of the options out there for how you could make a living in music.\u201d<\/p>\n
And there are many, Wright asserts. \u201cWe\u2019re in an environment now where there are more and more opportunities for entrepreneurs to find niches where they can work. Your career does not have to be a hundred percent performance or a hundred percent teaching. This whole concept is catching on at universities, recognizing that a freelance musician is a small-business owner, and there are a lot of practical things you need to know to make that career work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Graham Wright was in love. But an exclusive relationship? In his twenties? In Boston? No. Wasn\u2019t going to happen. So Wright did what any red-blooded young man in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":13552,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-music"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}