Gregory Pascuzzi

From Wind Repertory Project
Gregory Pascuzzi

Biography

Gregory Pascuzzi (b. 1952, Pittsburgh, Penn.) is an American composer, conductor, trumpet, cornet player, pianist and percussionist.

Pascuzzi was born into a musical family; his father Wayne Pascuzzi was percussionist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, then headed by Fritz Reiner and William Steinberg, and his mother Wanda Pascuzzi was a piano teacher. His older brother Todd was the tuba in the River City Brass Band. Gregory Pascuzzi studied composition and conducting with, among others, Karel Husa (Eastern Music Festival in 1972), Frank McCarty (University of Pittsburgh), Henry Mazer (Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra), and Sheldon Morgenstern. Among his trumpet teachers in Pittsburgh were Anthony Pasquarelli, Paul Gerlach and Charles Hois.

In 1972 Pascuzzi joined the U.S. Army and played trumpet in the U.S. Military Academy Band at West Point. From 1974 he played cornet in the U.S. Army Field Band in Ft. Meade, Md, as well as piano in the Jazz Ambassador. He was also a composer, arranger and assistant conductor of the military orchestra. In 1999 he since resigned from the military and now works as a freelance composer and trumpeter.

He now works as a trumpet player in several groups along like the Peabody Ragtime Ensemble, the Klezmer band, Lox & Vodka. He is also co-director of the Annapolis Christian Big Band and co-director of the Music at Bishop Cummins Memorial Reformed Episcopal Church in Catonsville.

As a composer he writes music for various genres. His works have been played not only within the United States, but also by foreign orchestras and ensembles such as the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra in Manchester, All Souls Orchestra and All Souls Big Band in London, and the Russian Volga Wind Band.


Works for Winds


Resources