Craig Bohmler

Craig Bohmler (born April 7, 1956) is an American composer who specializes in opera and musical theater. His musicals include Gunmetal Blues (1991), which has had well over 100 professional productions; Enter the Guardsman (1997), which won the international Musical of the Year award and received an Olivier Award nomination; and Mountain Days (2000), celebrating the life of John Muir. His operas include Riders of the Purple Sage (2017), an adaptation of Zane Grey’s book of the same title which was broadcast nationwide in November 2017 and internationally in 2018. Bohmler has also composed numerous song cycles and other works for solo voice, choral works, and instrumental music pieces, and he is also a musical-theater director, vocal coach, and pianist. Early life and education Bohmler was born in Houston in 1956. He started piano lessons at the age of six, and began composing music as a teenager. He attended the University of North Texas’s College of Music, graduating in 1978 with a Bachelor of Music degree. In 1980 he received a Master of Music degree in piano performance from the University of Houston, where he studied piano and composition with Carlisle Floyd, who became his com