Camp Kirkland is a graduate of Florida State University where he received the degrees of Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music Education. While at Florida State, he served as Drum Major of the Marching Chiefs (1965-1966) and Graduate Assistant Director with the Marching Chiefs and Concert Band (1967-1968). During his career as a music educator, he taught at the junior high school, high school and collegiate levels, including being the Band Director at Laurens District High School in Laurens, South Carolina (1968-1970), the Band Director at Robert E. Lee High School in Jacksonville, Florida (1970-1972), and the Jazz Band Director, Associate Symphonic Band Director, Low Brass Instructor and Music Theory Instructor at Florida Community College in Jacksonville, Florida (1973-1976). Mr. Kirkland’s teaching experience included marching, concert and jazz bands, symphonic orchestra, music theory and applied low brass.
Mr. Kirkland’s principal instruments are euphonium and trombone. He is an outstanding instrumentalist and has performed with such diverse groups as the Jacksonville Symphony, the River City Brass Band, as well as numerous touring bands and orchestras. He is a member of Phi Mu Alpha and Kappa Kappa Psi music fraternities.
Over the past four decades, Camp Kirkland has emerged as one of the premier church musicians in the nation. He is recognized as the pioneer in establishing instrumental music as a viable medium in the life of the church music program. In 1971, he began the instrumental music program at First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida. In 1976, he joined the staff full time as Instrumental Director, the first position of its kind in the nation. During his tenure, the program flourished to include four graded orchestras and a number of small ensembles involving over 200 instrumentalists. He also created the church’s acclaimed School of Music which assists over 100 students each semester in the study of a variety of orchestral instruments, voice and piano. This program is still a model of excellence in music and effectiveness in ministry. Many of the great church orchestras around the country are led by students and associates of Mr. Kirkland.
In addition to being a highly skilled and recognized educator, clinician and spokesman, Camp Kirkland has enjoyed a brilliant career as an arranger and orchestrator. He has over a thousand publications in his catalog and is an important contributor to the leading publishers of church music today. He has the reputation of being a consummate professional both in the creative process, in the recording studio, and in working with church music programs around the country. Camp’s love for Christ is evident in every phase of his art. Church musicians around the world have been blessed not only by his music but by his testimony to the faithfulness of God.
Camp Kirkland continues his music ministry, assisted by his wife Fran, through Camp Kirkland Productions, located in Nashville, Tennessee.