Donald I. Moore composer

Donald Irving Moore (11 April 1910, Farnhamville, Iowa – 30 April 1988) was an American composer, conductor and educator.

Of his elementary school days, he remembers having to line up every day going into the building to the tunes of marches played on the Victrola. His mother said she nearly went crazy with his everlasting “drumming” with sticks on anything flat in the house. So when he went to high school, she told the band director that he had to use him in his band.

He graduated from North Des Moines (Iowa) High School; attended Drake University for one year; received his B. A. degree from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, in 1932, and his M. A. degree from Colorado State College of Education in 1940. After directing high school bands in Iowa at Charles City and Britt, he moved to Dallas, Texas, where he directed school bands and the all-city orchestra until he was named Director of Bands at Colorado State College of Education in January 1941. After service in the U. S. Navy from 1942 to 1945, he completed all of his residence work on an Ed. D. degree at the University of Michigan, and then went to New York City for a year as director of bands at both the Julliard School of Music and Columbia University.