Don Caron

Don Caron was born on January 15, 1955 in Chelan Washington to Leo Donald Caron and Margaret Yackley Caron, the fourth child of six. He attended high school at Gonzaga Prep in Spokane, Washington and Sacred Heart High School in Miles City, Montana. Caron studied at Whitworth University in Spokane from 1973 to 1977, under the tutelage of Margaret Saunders Ott, as a music major in applied piano. After college, he taught private piano and organ lessons for several years. In 1976 he founded Composers' Conspiracy, an organization devoted to producing live concerts of music by Northwest composers. He began composing ballet class music in 1986 and became internationally recognized in that field for his unique style of writing and performing. He released four albums of ballet class music between 1989 and 1994 which are now among the most widely used teaching materials in the ballet world, largely due to a system he developed called The MotoSonus Method which was the first standardized approach to composing ballet class music designed to enhance the effectiveness of the teaching process and accelerate learning. In 1990 he co-founded and co-directed Art Growers Association, a Washington non-profit corporation devoted to promoting original applications of music and dance in concert and educational settings. The Association distributed jazz and ballet instructional videos with music by Caron, and choreography by Jeffrey Amsden and Elizabeth Carlssohn. Caron also collaborated with Carlssohn in the composition and choreography of two full-length ballets (Centerpiece, and Five Gifts for Third Child), which premiered in the Spokane Opera House in 1987. He also co-composed the lengthy electronic score for Lady MacBeth, a Christopher Aponte ballet, and has composed several ballets for Theatre Ballet of Spokane. During the same time period wrote music for ad campaigns and corporate videos with clients which included Physio-Control, Princess Cruises, Novell, and Avista Corporation. From 1973 to 1995, Caron also composed a significant body of concert music with commissions from The Spokane Symphony, The Whitworth Community Orchestra, Zephyr, Washington State Artist's Trust, Washington State Cultural Enrichment Program, Spokane Ballet, Theatre Ballet, The Spokane Interfaith Council, and the Spokane Symphony Wind Ensemble. In 1995 he was commissioned by the Spokane Symphony to write a work commemorating its 50th anniversary; Paradigm Shifts (commissioned with funds from the Bruce Ferden Fund for 21st Century Music and a gift from the Olga Forrai Foundation of New York City) premiered on January 26, 1996 at The Spokane Opera House, conducted by Fabio Mechetti. In June of 1995, Caron began employment at North by Northwest Productions as resident Composer and Sound Designer. Caron designed and installed the Audio Production Suites at North by Northwest Productions and North by Northwest Entertainment. In 1998 Caron left North by Northwest and returned to freelance work to devote his time to writing the screenplay and soundtrack for the feature film The Basket, which was released in 1999 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 2003 he composed and orchestrated the full length musical titled Victor, which was based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with lyrics by Kimberly Hinton. In January of 2007 he left his position at North by Northwest to devote his time to writing the screenplay and novel for the true story of Different Drummers with writing partner Lyle Hatcher. Caron and Hatcher produced and directed the feature film Different Drummers, in 2012 and the film received a limited theatrical release in January of 2014. Worldwide distribution for Different Drummers is provided by Heritage HM. In August of 2017 Caron founded Parody Project, which produces videos of satire and parodies as a political commentary.