Dwight Gustafson

Dwight Leonard Gustafson (born April 20, 1930) is a composer, conductor, and dean emeritus of the School of Fine Arts, Bob Jones University.

Gustafson was born in Seattle, Washington of a father who was a meat dealer and lay preacher and a mother who was a pianist and harpist. Despite early violin training, Gustafson was attracted to a career in art and design. As a sophomore at Bob Jones University, he was asked to make sketches for a production of Cyrano de Bergerac and ended by designing the sets. In 1954, shortly before graduating from BJU with an M.A. in music, he was flabbergasted to be asked by the then-president, Bob Jones, Jr., to become dean of the School of Fine Arts. Gustafson was 24. Eventually he also earned a D. Mus. in composition from Florida State University, and in 1960, he was selected as one of ten young conductors to study at the Aspen School of Music.

Gustafson quickly proved himself a competent administrator who brought to his position a working knowledge of art, music, and drama. He also regularly conducted campus choirs and the Bob Jones Symphony Orchestra, especially in its annual opera productions. Nevertheless, outside fundamentalist circles, Gustafson is best known for his compositions and arrangements, which include more than 160 works, including five film scores, a string quartet, and numerous extended compositions for chorus and orchestra including Three Psalms for Chorus and Orchestra (1989) and Words of Passion and Resurrection (2002). Recent major orchestral works include Encounters (a violin concerto) and "Fantasia for a Celebration," which was commissioned by the Williamsburg (VA) Symphonia as part of the city’s 300-year celebration in 1999. In December 2006, Gustafson premiered a one-act opera, "Simeon," about the blessing given by Simeon the Righteous to the Christ child (Luke 2: 25-35).

When Dwight Gustafson retired as dean after forty years of service, Bob Jones University named the Gustafson Fine Arts Center in his honor. In 1999, he was awarded the Order of the Palmetto by then-Governor Jim Hodges. Gustafson continues to conduct occasional programs at BJU, remains active as a conductor of high school all-state choirs and orchestras, and regularly conducts church choir clinics throughout the United States.