D.M.A., Performance
University of California, Los Angeles
M.A., Composition
California State University, Los Angeles
B.A., Music
California State University, Los Angeles
Bio
American composer and performer (saxophone, clarinet, flute) Dr. Christopher Greco has musical interests that run far and wide. He composes and performs a broad and diverse range of chamber and orchestral music, and specializes in the performance of music of the twentieth century.
His compositional approach is rooted in aspects of American experimentalism and European traditions, and his accumulative nature has increased the scope and complexity of his work reflecting a predisposition for musical investigation, and discovery.
He has worked consistently and persistently with concepts of structured improvisation and notation, non-metered gestures, proportional notation, and strictly notated music in contemporary classical music, and jazz music. His work in jazz music can be viewed at his jazz portal (www.erjn.it/greco) located on the links page.
He has composed works that reflect specific compositional sound worlds, such as the series for chamber groups that offer a quiet, calm, delicate, and abstract sound world, or the series of works for chamber groups that offer an exploration of color, polyphony, and virtuosic potentials of instrumental sonorities.
Dr. Greco was trained as a composer and woodwind multi-instrumentalist in Los Angeles, and his compositions and performances have been stamped by critics as “impeccable,” “exploratory,” “luxuriant,” “ephemeral,” “boundless,” “modern,” and “exhilarating.”
He studied saxophone and clarinet with Douglas Masek, William Calkins, William Green, and Dominic Mumolo; flute with Gretel Shanley, and Diane Allencraig; oboe with William Green; composition with Aurelio de la Vega, and John Kennedy; and music theory with Daniel Kessner. Dr. Greco is an assistant professor of music and teaches music theory, composition, and applied woodwinds (cl., fl., sx., ob., bsn.) at Benedictine College (KS).
Publications
I. Papers
1. Doctoral Dissertation: “A Study: An Interpretation and Analysis of a Late Twentieth Century Work For Saxophone and Piano: Steven Stucky’s Notturno.” June 2006, UCLA
II. Articles
1. “New Music and the Saxophone: Diaphonia Intevallum by Joseph Schwantner.” Saxophone Journal Vol. 29, No. 2, Nov./Dec. 2004: p.54-57
2. “New Music and the Saxophone: Canto IV by Samuel Adler.” Saxophone Journal Vol. 27, No. 6, July/Aug. 2003: p.59-60
III. Compositions
Twenty-seven compositions published with Pleiadian Music (ASCAP).