Robert Lawson Craft (20 Oct 1923-10 Nov 2015) was a conductor and author who was known for his professional and personal association with Igor Stravinsky. He met Stravinsky in 1948 and remained close to him and his wife, Vera Stravinsky, until their deaths.

He had a son, Alexander, from his first marriage to Rita Christiansen, Stravinsky's nurse. He was survived by his second wife, Alva Celauro Minoff.

As a conductor, he conducted many orchestras in America, Canada, Europe, and the rest of the world. Some of Stravinsky's later works were premiered with Craft conducting. His recordings include many works by Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Webern.

His writings include collaborations with Stravinsky, such as Conversations with Igor Stravinsky (1959) and Memories and Commentaries (1960). He also wrote extensively on Stravinsky, as well as other notable figures in music and literature.

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (17 Jun 1882-6 Apr 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor. He also held French citizenship from 1934, having lived in Paris from 1920, following his permanent exile from Russia after the Russian Revolution, as well as American citizenship from 1945. He married his first wife, Yekaterina Nosenko (1881-1939) in 1906 and had four children with her. After her death, he married his long-time mistress Vera de Bosset (1889-1982) in 1940, who he lived with in America until his death in 1971. He was buried on the Island San Michele in Venice.

He was a prolific composer whose style developed and changed throughout his life. His early works, in his what is called his Russian period, include his ballets commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev for the Ballet Russe, 'The Firebird' (1910), 'Petrushka' (1911), and 'The Rite of Spring' (1913). 'The Rite of Spring' was famously used in Disney's 'Fantasia' (1940). His neoclassical period included pieces influenced by Greek mythology, including his 1933 work 'Perséphone'. His later music was influenced by the twelve-tone technique used by Schoenberg, and the music of the Second Viennese School, a change that came about after he met with Robert Craft.

Stravinsky worked with, and was influenced by, many notable figures in theatre, art, and literature. During his time in Russia, and through his association with Diaghilev, he worked with the dancers and choreographers Vaslav Nijinsky, Léonide Massine, and Michel Fokine, as well as artists such as Léon Bakst, Eugene Berman, and Pablo Picasso. During his time in America, he collaborated, and was friends with, many prominent authors, such as W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, and Aldous Huxley.

Stravinsky is still considered an important and influential composer and conductor whose works inspired many future composers.

See American National Biography for further details.