James H. Laster, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 19, 1934. He is currently Professor Emeritus at Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University, Winchester, Virginia.  He holds degrees in music history as well as biology from Maryville College, Maryville, Tennessee; the M.A. in musicology, and the Ph.D. in church music from George Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee; a Masters of Science in Library Science (music emphasis) from Catholic University in Washington, DC. He also holds a certificate in organ from the Mozarteum Summer Academy, Salzburg, Austria.

Dr. Laster has held teaching positions at George Peabody College; Grove City College in Pennsylvania; the Community School of Tehran, Iran; the Beirut College for Women, Beirut, Lebanon; and was a member of the faculty of Shenandoah Conservatory for 27 years. He has served as guest conductor and clinician for workshops and regional choral festivals. In 1997, he was a guest conductor choral festival of choirs from five Central American countries held in San Jose, Costa Rica. He has served as a choral judge for the Six Flags Choral Festivals held in Dallas, St. Louis, Atlanta, Chicago, and New Jersey. He has also judged at festivals in Washington, DC for National Heritage Tours, and in Washington and Chicago for Gateway Festivals.

At Shenandoah, Dr. Laster taught a variety of courses dealing with all phases of choral music, such as, choral conducting, choral arranging, choral organization and materials, as well as courses in church music, and music theory. He served as a Reference Librarian in the Alson Smith, Jr. Library on the Shenandoah campus. For twenty-three years, he was as the director of the Cantus Singers, a women's choral ensemble that appears regularly on campus as well as in the Northern Virginia area. Under his direction, the Cantus Singers performed the best choral literature written for women's voices, ranging from works composed in the Renaissance to those of the twentieth century. He also directed the Shenandoah Singers, a show-choir of twenty-two singers, for ten years.

He is active in theatre both on and off the stage, having been the musical director for fifty-two musical theatre productions, including: Gypsy, Hello Dolly, A Little Night Music, Carousel, Oklahoma, Fiddler on the Roof, Damn Yankees, Guys and Dolls, Grease, Man of LaMancha, Shenandoah, State Fair, and Children of Eden to name a few.

He has served as organist/choirmaster in various churches.  During his graduate school years, he was at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, Nashville. Other churches he has served include St. John’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, Pennsylvania; the Community Church, Tehran, Iran; the English Speaking Church, Beirut, Lebanon.   From 1973 to 1999, he was Organist/Choirmaster of Trinity Episcopal Church, Upperville, Virginia.  For each of the congregations, he composed many choral and instrumental works for use in the liturgy.

Dr. Laster holds membership in The American Guild of Organists, and is a member of ASCAP.  He is a past member of Actors’ Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, American Choral Directors Association (Virginia past-president; and past-State Chair for the Committee on Women's Choruses).  He has choral works published by Augsburg-Fortress, Concordia, Mark Foster, Boosey & Hawkes, Hinshaw, and Treble Clef Press.  He has numerous choral and instrumental compositions in manuscript.

He has received many commissions for compositions, a recent one was for the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Virginia observed in October, 2007.  This work, “Virginia’s Harmonies” for combined choirs, brass quintet and organ, used shape-note tunes from The Virginia Harmony, published in Winchester in 1831.  In August, 2004, the Royal School of Church Music Millennium Youth Choir performed his “O nata lux” on the BBC broadcast of Choral Evensong aired from Hexham Abbey.  In 2007, his composition, “A Madrigal for Spring,” was chosen as one of the compulsory pieces for the women’s choral division of the Schubert International Choral Festival held annually in Vienna, Austria.

James Laster is the author of the articles:  “Fascination:  East” that appeared in The Iranian Students’ Inter-University Society of Beirut Annual, 1968-1969 and “The Persian Tunebook:  A Dream Fulfilled,” The Hymn, 30:78-88, n2 (April, 1979).  He is the compiler of A Catalogue of Choral Music Arranged in Biblical Order (first and second editions); A Catalogue of Choral Music Arranged in Biblical Order - Supplement; A Catalogue of Vocal Solos and Duets Arranged in Biblical Order (first and second editions) and A Discography of Treble-Voice Recordings, and most recently, A Catalogue of Music for Organ and Instruments, all published by Scarecrow Press.  His book, So You’re the New Musical Director - a guide to the duties of a musical director for Broadway productions, also published by Scarecrow Press, is in its second printing.  An annotated bibliography of materials dealing with the women’s chorus, co-authored with Dr. Nancy Menk, is published as #149 (part I), #150 (part II), #166 (part III), and #175 (part IV) of The Research Memorandum Series.  A history of the women’s chorus at the collegiate level in the United States since 1880 is an on-going research project.

He is married to Madlon T. Laster (B.S. Maryville College, 1956; M.A. Peabody, 1967; Ph.D. George Mason University, 1996).  Her books, Brain-Based Teaching for All Subjects (2008) and Teaching the Way the Brain Learns (2009) are published by Roman and Littlefield.

The Lasters have one son, J. Travis Laster (B.A. Princeton University, 1991; M.A. and J.D., University of Virginia, 1995) formerly of Richards, Layton and Finger as well as of Abrams and Laster, Wilmington, Delaware.  Since October 2009, Travis is Vice-Chancellor on the Delaware Court of Chancery.  He is married to Rebecca Wells (B.A. Princeton University, 1991; M.A. BrynMawr, 1999) a social worker who is currently in the Ph.D. program at BrynMawr.  Travis and Becky have  three children:  Grace, Hayden, and Addie.