Dr. David Craighead maintained a balanced career as both performer and teacher for more than fifty years. He showed great interest in music from an early age and studied first with his mother and later with pianist Olga Steeb, organist Clarence Mader, and Alexander McCurdy at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he received a Bachelor of Music degree in 1946. From the summer of 1948 through 1955, Dr. Craighead taught in the music department of Occidental College, Los Angeles and was organist at the Pasadena Presbyterian church where he gave bi-weekly organ recital broadcasts and accompanied many oratorios and musical performances. From 1955 to 1992, when he retired, he was Professor of Organ and Chair of the Organ Division of the Keyboard Department at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, NY. During this time he was also organist of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Rochester. Until his wife Marian's death in 1996, he played concerts of organ duet with her in numerous cities nationwide and completed a recording, The Craigheads at Asbury. He has played recitals at seven national conventions of the American Guild of Organists, and at International Congresses held in London, Philadelphia, and Cambridge, England. He was the first recipient of the Eisenhart Award for teaching excellence at the Eastman School and recently was awarded an honorary fellowship in the Royal College of Organists, London, England.
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