Music, B.A. | Class of 1979

Craig Naylor

Retired college professor and teacher, now writing novels, poetry, music, teaching Aikido and tending an orchard of antique apples near Kalispell, Montana

Employer: self

Job description: My music creations have been played worldwide by ensembles ranging from elementary school band to the orchestral soundtrack for the IMAX film "To The Limit." My commissions include the Los Angeles Concert Orchestra, the Glacier Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Moravian Trombone Choir, the Music Association of California Community Colleges, The "President's Own" Marine Band Tuba-Euphonium Quartet, the Gee-Mackey Duo, the Wind Ensembles of the Universities of Arizona State, Azusa Pacific, British Columbia, Colorado State, Cornell, Georgia, Hartford, Humboldt State, Idaho, Montana, Oklahoma, Richmond, San Jose State, UCLA, Yale, Allegheny College, Gettysburg College, Irvine Valley College, and numerous high, middle and elementary school choirs, bands, and orchestras. My fanfare, On The Head of a Pin, opened the Dallas Wind Symphony's February 2006 concert. I have received two Continental Harmony commissions/residencies from the American Composers Forum. Unknown Heroes of the Civil War, my trilogy for wind ensemble, was released in 2013 by the Gettysburg Wind Symphony on the CD Gettysburg at 150. These three works are dedicated to U.S. spy Elizabeth Van Lew, former slave John Washington, and Seneca Chief Ely S. Parker who was U. S. Grant's adjutant.

I am a frequent guest conductor and clinician and received notable acclaim for my direction of Native Voices, two concerts performed at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage and the National Museum of the American Indian featuring the compositions of American Indian composers.