Robert Craft

Robert Lawson Craft is an American conductor, noted for his association with Igor Stravinsky and his championing of the music of Anton Webern and other composers of the Second Viennese School. Craft had a middle-class upbringing in upstate New York. After service as an Army medic during World War II, he studied at Juilliard and Berkshire Music Center and privately with Pierre Monteux. From 1947 to 1950 he conducted the Chamber Arts Society of New York, attracting attention for his adventurous programming. His conducting led to a meeting with the 65-year-old Igor Stravinsky, ...