A native of southern Missouri, Christopher Lair completed his Doctor of Music (DM) at The Florida State University, his MM and BM at The University of Kansas, and studied music education at The Southeast Missouri State University. He studied performance with Scott Watson, Max Bonecutter, Paul Ebbers, and R. Winston Morris. He studied music education and conducting with Dr. Robert Gifford, Dr. John Lynch, and Mr. Tom Stidham.

While maintaining a busy schedule as a performer and music educator, his career has included positions with orchestras, military bands, universities, and high schools. Along the way, Dr. Lair has developed an international reputation as a soloist, having toured Europe, the United Kingdom, and Central and South America, appearing at such venues as The Prague Conservatory of Music and The Conservatorio de la Música at The University of Costa Rica, as well as numerous conferences, high schools, and universities across the United States. His students have appeared in Carnegie Recital Hall, The Lincoln Center Plaza, as finalists in international solo competitions, on NPR's radio show "From the Top", won various positions in orchestras and military bands, and currently teach in many universities and high schools. They have participated in festivals such as Boston's Tanglewood Institute, The Symphonia Workshop, The Brevard Music Center, The Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, and others.

His scholarship includes a comprehensive music appreciation anthology, a series of presentations on music of the Great Depression Era, and a collection of arrangements for solo tuba or euphonium and piano of works by early American composers. In addition, he is the author of a series of method books for beginning and intermediate tubists and euphoniumists titled Journeys; A Methodical Approach for the Young Tubist / Euphoniumist. He has commissioned, arranged, and premiered new works for brass quintet, tuba-euphonium ensemble, and tuba solo. Dr. Christopher Lair is an Eastman Performing Artist.