bio Maestro Staton’s distinguished musical career has taken him throughout the United States, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Scandinavia and Australia, and has led to appointments as professor of music at the University of Denver and the University of Hawai’i at Hilo.  He has also served as lecturer at the University of the Philippines and at Holy Trinity College in Palawan, Philippines.  In 1985 he left the University of Hawai'i at Hilo to devote more time to his professional conducting career.  He has conducted orchestras from the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, the Shanghai Opera Center, New Music Ensemble of Oslo, Norway, the Sunra Symphony Orchestra (Hawai'i) and the Heartland Symphony Orchestra (Minnesota, USA).  He is an active conductor both on the concert stage and as musical director for over thirty stage productions.  In 1990 Maestro Staton founded the Kona Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.  In 2003 he returned to the University of Hawai'i-Hilo where he is currently Chair of the Performing Arts Department,  Director of Choral Activities and founder and conductor of the UH Hilo/Community Orchestra.  He is the 2006 recipient of the Hung Wo and Elizabeth Lau Ching Foundation Award for Faculty Service to the Community.  He has received annual performance grants from the Arthur and Mae Orvis Foundation (NYC) for the last four years.

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