Acton Ostling, Jr.

Acton Ostling, Jr. is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Louisville, serving as Director of Bands and conductor of the Louisville Symphony Band in the School of Music from 1974 until 1995. He also served as Director of Bands at the University of Maryland, and at Iowa State University. He retired in June, 2001. He began his career in 1959 as band and orchestra director at Conard High School in West Hartford, Connecticut. At various times during his tenure in Louisville he has conducted the University Orchestra, The Louisville Orchestra, and the Louisville Youth Orchestra. Class assignments included the teaching of conducting at both the undergraduate and graduate level, and graduate courses in philosophy of music education and music learning theory. He also taught classes in the multiple intelligences theory of Howard Gardner, orchestration for concert band, instrumental score reading, and wind band literature. A native of New York State, and son of a noted instrumental music educator, he completed bachelor and master of music degrees at the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D at the University of Iowa. His doctoral dissertation was a seminal study of wind band literature according to specific criteria of artistic merit. He was elected to membership in the American Bandmasters Association in 1967. He has served on the editorial committee for the "Journal of Band Research," and as its Acting Editor. He was State Band Chairman in Connecticut, is a former President of the Maryland Band Directors Association, and served an eight-year period as Secretary-Treasurer of the College Band Directors National Association.