Benedictine College
Endorsing Artist
Professional Affiliations
D.M.A., Performance
University of California, Los Angeles
M.A., Music Composition
California State University, Los Angeles
B.A., Music
California State University, Los Angeles
American award-winning composer, classical / jazz woodwind performer, and associate professor of music Christopher Greco has broad interests that are woven within a professional life of teaching, performing, composing, research, and recording. As a composer and woodwind performer – saxophonist, clarinetist – he engages in a broad and diverse range of chamber, concert hall, electro-acoustic, and jazz music.
Music studies as a classical saxophonist and clarinetist (DMA), composer (MA), and woodwind multi-instrumentalist (clarinet, saxophone, flute, oboe) were completed in his hometown of Los Angeles. Greco composes in cycles, maintains an active performance itinerary as a classical recitalist and jazz artist, currently serves as an associate professor of music, engages in a wide range of research, and continues to follow a musical path of discovery and accumulation.
Publications appear in Saxophone Journal (U.S.), Saxophone Today (U.S.), Clarinet & Saxophone Society of Great Britain (U.K.), and doctoral paper, A Study: An Interpretation and Analysis of a Late Twentieth Century Work for Saxophone and Piano: Steven Stucky’s Notturno is published by AkademikerVerlag, 2008.
As a composer, Greco draws from the music traditions of the past and present within the worlds of twentieth century music, jazz, non-western, American popular, and the classical repertoire. Works are published with Pleiadian Music (ASCAP). Greco’s jazz recordings have charted in the top 10 on CMJ national jazz charts, with recordings and performances garnering a global following through broadcasts in Portugal, Brazil, Netherlands, France, Italy, Russia, Germany, and Belgium.
Compositions and performances have been endorsed in the U.S. and internationally: “multi-talented artist,” “a versatile innovative musician,” “boundless inspiration,” “supreme multi-instrumentalist,” “exhilarating,” “extremely impressive playing,” “thought provoking,” “virtuoso saxophonist,” “impeccable performance,” “beautiful.”
Greco studied saxophone and clarinet with Douglas Masek (Vincent Abato, Robert Marcellus, Donald Sinta), William Calkins (Cecil Leeson), William Green (Mitchell Lurie), and Dominic Mumolo; flute with Gretel Shanley, and Diane Allen Craig; oboe with William Green; composition with Aurelio de la Vega (Ernst Toch) and John Kennedy; and music theory with Aurelio de la Vega, and Daniel Kessner (Henri Lazarof).
Currently Dr. Greco is an associate professor of music at Benedictine College and teaches music theory (coordinator), composition (coordinator), applied studio woodwinds, orchestration, counterpoint, and History of Jazz (summer online). He served as chair of the curriculum committee, and chair of the Convocation and Arts committee.