Greg

A lot of Greg’s music career has been about performing.  He has already performed in 10 countries to crowds of over 15,000 people.  A few of the musicians he’s had the pleasure of performing with are: Dr. John, Bruce Hornsby, Will Lee, Steve Miller, Patti Austin, Die Artze, Shelly Berg, Barry Harris, Fred Wesley, Clarence Reid (aka Blowfly), Sammy Figueroa, Lissette and Willy Chirino.  D’Addario Strings currently sponsors him.
Greg is a native of Rochester NY and first began studying cello at 2 1/2.  He played cello throughout grade school.  Greg won the Jo Amish Young Artists Concerto Competition and as a result was a soloist with the Pendfield Symphony Orchestra.  When he was 16, he was introduced to jazz music.  He soon became fascinated with the genre and began to figure out how to apply what he was hearing on famous records to the cello.
Greg started attending University of Miami in fall of 2004 and almost immediately began to study acoustic and electric bass.  While there, he pursued a Bachelor’s of Music in both Instrumental Performance and Studio Music & Jazz, performing both instruments in both contexts.  In May 2008, Greg obtained Summa Cum Laude and became the first jazz cellist to graduate from the University of Miami.
After spending a year doing freelance performance, recording and teaching, Greg moved to Santa Clarita in order to pursue a Master’s in Fine Arts in Performance/Composition at California Institute of the Arts.  Along with teaching private lessons and tutoring music theory/ear training at CalArts, he also began teaching cello, violin and piano at Vibe Performing Arts Studio in Newhall, CA.
Greg’s philosophy for teaching is that everyone has the ability to make music.  Some people, whether through innate talent, exposure to friends/family or other means seem to have an easy time learning music.  Those of us who do not have such advantages can still excel to any level of skill that we desire.  The concept to remember is that if you put the time into practicing, you will improve, no matter what.
Greg believes that students should learn not only the music of past masters, but also music that is relevant to them currently.  Once a student has enough skill to have some basic proficiency and technique, (this varies instrument to instrument), Greg finds it important to work on not only etudes, scales and classical pieces but also music the student is passionate about, be that pop, rock, etc.  With this method, Greg’s goal is to foster a life-long enjoyment of music, and to teach the student how to discern what “good” music is in their ears.