Seattle Girls Choir founder welcomes group to Sequim

Published 3:30 am Wednesday, June 17, 2026

For Dr. Jerome “Jerry” Wright of Sequim, he’s participating in both a homecoming and send-off concert in Sequim with some of Seattle’s best young female singers.

Prime Voci — the top ensemble of the internationally acclaimed Seattle Girls Choir — will perform at 5 p.m. Thursday, June 25 at Trinity United Methodist Church, 100 N. Blake Ave. in Sequim.

The concert serves as part of a send-off before the ensemble departs on a European tour. Admission is free with a freewill offering benefiting the choir.

Wright, 86, founded Prime Voci and the Seattle Girls Choir in 1982 and retired from the group in 2009.

“I’m just honored that they want to come to Sequim,” said Wright, the choir’s artistic director emeritus.

Prime Voci’s conductor Sarra S. Doyle, who once sang for Wright in the choir and is now its third conductor, mentioned to Wright the possibility of bringing the group to Sequim before their tour to the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Since his retirement, he said he’s proud of the choir’s growth.

“I’m like a proud papa, although I’ve got five children of my own, but I just love what they’re doing, and I’m so proud of the conductor who grew up in the choir; they love her,” he said.

Their program in Sequim will include mostly American music featuring Pacific Northwest composers, folks songs and spirituals, such as Jessica French’s “O Star of Strength,” Jacob Winkler’s arrangement of “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel,” and Wright’s longtime best friend and Mannheim Steamroller’s Jackson Berkey’s “Ascondit Deus.”

Wright will conduct “The Road Home,” an American folk song arranged by Stephen Paulus.

“It’s quite lovely, really,” Wright said of the song. “The harmonies are very close and very beautiful and very haunting … I’m honored they asked me to conduct it.”

Along with leading periodic workshops, and guest conducting at the choir’s annual Christmas concert, he’ll also participate in the Seattle Girls Choir’s Homecoming concert set for Oct. 10 featuring all generations of singers coming back.

For more information about the Seattle Girls Choir, visit seattlegirlschoir.org.

Wright and the choir

Wright said the Seattle Girls Choir was started as an after school conservatory at University Christian Church with about 60 girls, and now serves about 250 choristers in kindergarten-12th grade from Seattle and the greater King County region.

It was started as an option for girls because the Northwest Boychoir had already been established in 1974, Wright said.

Their studies include classes in rehearsals, music theory, vocal production, music history, and more.

Under Wright’s leadership, they’ve toured the globe multiple times and have won prestigious awards.

“We went to the Vienna Festival in 1985 and came away with the first prize. That’s the third year of the choir’s existence,” he said.

They tied with Kingsbury High School girls choir from London and went to a Canadian competition the following year and won two categories, too.

“So we sang, and sat down, and the judge, the representative of the panel, got up, and they did public adjudication, like they do in Europe, and I’ll never forget what he said, ‘the performance of the Seattle Girls Choir chamber choir goes beyond competition into the realm of high choral art. Therefore, the panel are not awarding a second place in this category.’”

“It’s like the ultimate compliment that I’ll never forget,” Wright said.

This and other performances led to invites across the world, including Finland to open a new concert hall, and they’d tour about every two-three years, he said. They’d also try to learn at least one song in the language of the country they’re performing to honor them.

Wright said that seeing the group grow and keep touring feels like his legacy is continuing on particularly as generations of singers participate. He knows of one grandmother who sang in the choir that’s now bringing her granddaughter.

“(Students) don’t do it under duress, they do it because they love it,” Wright said.

“We try to teach them how to love music and that is one of the most important aspects of an integrated personality is to be able to appreciate things that are beautiful.

“These choirs take you to another level of consciousness and of feeling. You have to feel the music in order to make it world class. You’ve got to get in touch with it.”

Starting out

While Wright is turning 87 in September, he jokingly asks himself why he’s still conducting.

“I love people. I love teaching, and watching groups develop, and mature,” he said. “It’s just in me as a teacher, and so I just can’t seem to get away from it.”

In his school years, Wright was an instrumentalist, sang in his high school’s a cappella choir, and choral music “kind of sneaked in,” he said. When he was 16, his choral director called him into her office and said there’s a Lutheran church looking for a choir director.

“I said, ‘but I’m just a kid,’ and she says, ‘you can do this. Go talk to them,’” Wright said.

He spoke with church leaders and was hired and began his journey leading choirs.

“The bad part is the conductor saw something too,” Wright joked. “When I was 15, He gave me the pep band, just gave me a key to the building and gave me the pep band and said, ‘you choose the members and you do the rehearsals and you do the pep assemblies and the games.’ I was also the drum major of the high school band.”

During his time at the University of Washington, he played saxophone at the Everett Elks Club for a number of years. He’d work at one of his dad’s shoe stores after college during the week and then play Friday and Saturday nights from 9 p.m.-2 a.m. before leading the church choir on Sunday mornings.

“I was very busy,” he said. “I’ve never known anything but that, so I almost feel guilty when I get a day off.”

Time in Sequim

For 11 years, Wright has served as Trinity United Methodist Church’s choral director in Sequim.

They have about 35 members with about 50 before COVID-19, he said.

“COVID did a nasty thing to culture because it got people used to sitting on their butts at home watching a service on television and not coming in for the commonality of coming together physically,” he said. “It’s really important and I miss that part of it.”

The church used to offer an event called Music Sunday that would devote a service to music with some of the choir’s favorite songs from during the year. Now it’s been changed to a concert of its own, which was held on May 2. It included the OTA Singers from Olympic Theatre Arts, which also features TUMC choir members.

While the choir doesn’t rehearse in the summer, they offer various ensemble opportunities, Wright said.

They continue to seek new singers as well.

“They do a very interesting repertoire, many different styles of music, and it’s a fellowship of people that really like and truly love one another,” Wright said.

For more information about Trinity United Methodist Church in Sequim, visit sequimtumc.org or call 360-683-5367.