Roger Nixon

1973: Festival Fanfare March

Roger Nixon (1921–2009) was Professor Emeritus of music at San Francisco State University and a member of the American Bandmasters Association.

A native of California, Nixon attended Modesto Junior College, where studied clarinet with Frank Mancini, formerly of John Philip Sousa's band. He received a bachelor of arts, master of arts, and doctorate of philosophy in composition from the University of California at Berkeley, where he studied primarily with Roger Sessions as well as Arthur Bliss, Ernest Bloch, Charles Cushing, Frederick Jacobi, and Arnold Schoenberg.

Nixon served as faculty at Modesto Junior College from 1951 to 1959, and at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) from 1960 until his death in 2009.

Nixon has been honored by the Texas Bandmasters Association as a Heritage American Composer. He has also received several awards for composition, including a Phelan Award, the 1979 Neil A. Kjos Memorial Award for his Pacific Celebration Suite for symphonic band, and five grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Nixon won the 1973 ABA Ostwald Award for his composition Festival Fanfare-March, a lively work performed by the United States Air Force Band at the 1973 ABA Convention and featured on the band’s cross-country tour that spring, directed by Col. Arnald Gabriel.