John Craton

American composer John Craton was born in 1953 in Anniston, Alabama, and began his career on the violin at the age of 10. He began piano at age 14 and made his first attempts at composing at age 11. Craton studied violin under the late concert violinist Robert Louis Barron and John Maltese; piano under Louis Culver and Ouida Susie Francis; and music theory and composition under Gerald Moore and Henry Fusner. He received his B.A. from Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, and his M.A. from Indiana University, Bloomington.Craton’s music has been performed by such artists and ensembles as Sebastiaan de Grebber, John Tabler, Ferdinand Binnendijk, Ljubomir Velickovic, Gertrud Weyhofen, Eva van den Dool, Christiaan Saris, The Townsend Opera Players, Het CONSORT, Het Orkest van het Oosten, and the Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra. His works comprise a highly diverse register of compositions and include operas, orchestral works, concertos, chamber music, and song cycles. His style tends toward polyphonic harmony and has been compared to the works of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. A number of his works are currently available in print from Wolfhead Music .