Music Directors

Steve Layman, music director since 2008, is a native of Toledo, Ohio. He received his undergraduate degree in Music Education from Ohio Northern University and his Masters in Music from the University of Kentucky, where he was a tuba student of Rex Conner. Steve is a Nationally Registered Music Educator, and the 1996 recipient of the Piedmont Council for the Arts Education Award. He is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi Band Fraternity and Phi Kappa Lambda Music Honorary, as well as the recipient of two President’s Citations from the Virginia Governor’s School.  Mr. Layman was recently honored as one of three inductees in the inaugural class of the Western Albemarle High School Fine Arts Hall of Fame.

Mr. Layman served as a band director with the Albemarle County schools from 1977 to 2008, serving as band director at Walton Middle School for eight years and Western Albemarle High School for twenty-three years. His Western Albemarle concert and jazz bands consistently received superior ratings at district, state and regional competitions. He has also served as a low brass, concert and jazz band clinician and judge in Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky.

Mr. Layman directed the University of Virginia Symphonic Band and Brass Ensembles between 1984 and 1990, and he is currently a member of the adjunct music faculty at Piedmont Virginia Community College teaching trumpet, trombone, baritone, tuba and band ensemble, and at James Madison University where he has supervised student teachers and directed the jazz band. As a brass performer he has performed with the Charlottesville Municipal Band, The Orange Community Band, the Charlottesville & University Symphony Orchestra, the Heritage Repertory Theater, the New Lyric Theater, the Oratorio Society of Virginia, the Richmond Symphony, the Sentimental Journey, and Salute to Swing Big Bands.

An amateur astronomer, Mr. Layman has served as president and secretary of the Charlottesville Astronomical Society and manages the CLUSTER outreach program for the University of Virginia Astronomy Department. His wife Alice is the organist/choir director for Christ Episcopal Church Charlottesville and accompanist for the Virginia Consort.

Gary H. Fagan was born and raised in Frederick, Maryland, where he remained until graduation from high school. He completed his undergraduate work at Bridgewater College with a degree in Music Education in 1973 and began teaching middle and high school choral music in Louisa County, Virginia. He attended James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia from 1974 through 1977, receiving a master’s degree in music education. In 1975 he became a band instructor in Albemarle County, Virginia, where he taught at J. T. Henley Middle School until his retirement in 2009 with his wife, Phyllis, who is the choral director.

In 1989 Mr. Fagan was elected Central Virginia Outstanding Middle School Teacher by the University of Virginia Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa. In 1999 he received an Outstanding Educator Award from the Virginia Governor’s School for the Visual and Performing Arts and was listed in the 2000 edition of “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers”. He was also named Educator of the Year in 2001 by the Piedmont Council of the Arts in Virginia. He is active in the Music Educators National Conference and the Virginia Band and Orchestra Directors Association. He is a member of A.S.C.A.P., the National Band Association, the Percussive Arts Society and Phi Beta Mu International Bandmaster Fraternity. He is a percussionist with the Charlottesville Municipal Band, having played with the group since 1977. He is active as a band clinician and adjudicator in addition to composing and arranging for band.

Mr. Fagan has had over thirty compositions for band published by Heritage Music Press, MSB Publishing Company, Grand Mesa Music Publishers, Daehn Music Publications, Ludwig Publishing and Alfred Music Publications. Seven of these pieces have been performed at the prestigious Mid-West Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago. One was performed at the White House several years ago and at the inauguration ceremony for former Governor Douglas Wilder in Richmond, VA. His biography and compositions are listed in the Heritage Encyclopedia of Music. He is currently under contract for future publication with Alfred Publishers.

Charles J. Torian is a native of Hampton, Virginia. He holds music degrees from Frederick College in Portsmouth and from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. He is a former member of the U.S. Navy Band in Washington, D.C. He held positions playing oboe and English horn in the Norfolk (now Virginia) Symphony Orchestra, the Knoxville Tennessee Symphony Orchestra, and the Frederick (Maryland) Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, he had a twenty-five year teaching career in public school band and choral education, teaching in Hampton and Lexington, Virginia as well as in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Mr. Torian is currently the Music Director of the Orange, Virginia, Community Band, and he is also a former Music Director at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Charlottesville, where he and his wife, Theresa, shared leadership responsibilities for eight choirs and instrumental ensembles. He is a freelance composer and arranger of band and choral music, writing also for various instrumental ensembles.

Mr. Torian is the owner of Hummingbird Music, a small music publishing concern. In addition to playing oboe and English horn in the Municipal Band he enjoys genealogical research, photography, fresh-water fishing, and raising standard dachshunds.