James Croft received the BME degree from Cornell College, an MA from Northern Iowa University, and his doctorate from the University of Oklahoma. He taught for twenty-one years in the public schools in Iowa and Wisconsin, the last eighteen of which were spent in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where his groups were invited to appear at numerous state, regional, and national conventions, clinics, and festivals. In 1972, he joined the faculty of the University of South Florida as Director of Bands, remaining there until assuming a position as Professor of Music at Florida State University in 1980. He became Director of Bands at FSU in 1981. He retired from the faculty in the summer of 2003, after taking the FSU Wind Orchestra to perform for the World Association of Symphonic Band Ensembles convention in Sweden.
Widely sought as a guest conductor, lecturer, adjudicator, and clinician, he has appeared in forty-six states, Europe, Great Britain, Mexico, Canada, Israel, and Australia. These appearances include the National Music Camp (Interlochen), the Royal Academy of Music (London), the Royal Marine School of Music (Portsmouth), the Central Army Orchestra (Budapest), the Ensemble Barrundeum (Prague), the Royal Central Air Force Band (London), the Matan Music Camp (Israel), conducting symposia at the University of Calgary and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, the Band Conductors Art (University of Michigan), The Art of Wind Band Teaching (University of Minnesota), the British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles, the World Association of Symphonic Band Ensembles, and the Mid-West International Band and Orchestra Clinic (Chicago). He annually serves on the conducting faculty of Canford (England) School of Music.
A past president of both the National Band Association and the College Band Directors National Association, he also serves as a Contributing Editor for The Instrumentalist, and as a Consulting Editor for Research Perspectives in Music Education. He is an elected member of the American Bandmasters Association and Phi Beta Mu. In 1966-67, The School Musician selected him as one of the nation’s ten outstanding music educators. Both Cornell College and the University of Oklahoma have recognized him as a distinguished alumnus. In 1997, he received a Florida State University Teaching Award, and was recognized as the University Educator of the Year. He is the recipient of the Makovsky Memorial Award and the Distinguished Service Medal, from Kappa Kappa Psi; the Florida Collegiate Educator of the Year award from the Florida Music Educators Association; the Mid-West Clinic’s Medal of Honor; and was inducted into the Florida Bandmasters Association Roll of Distinction in 2002.
Dr. Croft has shared his life, his career, and his abundant successes with his beautiful wife, Diana.