Custodians

Craig Dabelstein is a woodwind player, conductor and musicologist. He began studying the piano at age seven and took up the saxophone at age twelve. Craig has held the principal saxophone chairs in the Australian Wind Orchestra and has been an augmenting member of the Queensland Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras. He has been a conductor of the Young Conservatorium Symphonic Winds and a member of the Queensland Saxophone Quartet. He was a regular conductor of the Queensland Wind Orchestra and has been a research associate for the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series of books. He is the editor of more than sixty books on music including The Art of Musical Conducting, Aesthetics of Music (8 volumes) and The History and Literature of the Wind Band and Wind Ensemble (13 volumes). He currently works as a freelance conductor and a woodwind/percussion performer.

Through his one-man company, Maxime’s Music, Craig publishes the music of three renowned American composers: Jerome Sorcsek, Jeffrey A. Young and David Whitwell. He also invests much time in rediscovering the music of Australia’s past and has produced recordings of the music of Alex F. Lithgow, Charles Trussell, Thomas Bulch and Percy Code. Craig has also produced a series of recordings of forgotten European band music from the 1800s called “The Best Band Music You’ve Never Heard.”