 Greg
Byers (Private Cello, Violin and Piano) is one of the most respected up and coming performers on the music scene today. Despite his youthful appearance, he has already performed in 10 countries to crowds of over 15,000 people. To his credit, he has shared the stage with such icons as Bruce
Hornsby, Will Lee, Steve Miller, Patti Austin, Die Artze, Shelly Berg,
Barry Harris, Fred Wesley, Clarence Reid (a.k.a. Blowfly), Sammy
Figueroa, Lissette, Willy Chirino, and many more.
A native of Rochester, New York, Greg first began studying cello at the
young age of 3. He continued to practice, and throughout middle and
high school, he performed and toured with the Hochstien Youth Symphony
Orchestra and the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. He also won
the Jo Amish Young Artists Concerto Competition, and as a result, he
was a soloist with the Penfield Symphony Orchestra. When Greg was
sixteen, he was introduced to jazz music by a friend in his school's
jazz band. 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. He soon attended Berklee School of Music for a summer, and he
began to focus more on improvised music.
When Greg started attending the University of Miami, he began to study
the acoustic and electric bass. He also purchased an electric cello in
order to create a more distinct, personal sound. Since then, he has
been heard around Miami at the Adrienne Arsht Center, the Jackie
Gleason Theater, the Norton Museum of Art, the South Miami Rotary Art
Festival, Vino Miami, B.E.D. Miami, and more. In May of 2008, Greg
obtained Summa Cum Laude and became the first jazz cellist to graduate
from the University of Miami.
Recently, he moved to Santa Clarita in order to pursue a Master's in
Fine Arts in Performance/Composition at California Institute of the
Arts. He is currently working on a solo EP of original music entitled
Some Dark, Beautiful Morning. He is also involved with multiple groups
at CalArts and his own solo projects. Greg can be heard on Ed Hale's
Ballad on Third Avenue, Lizette Santana's I Still Dream of You, Nick
Kruge's Lullaby for Strangers, Andrew Vait's Face to Face, Brink of
Something Beautiful's Doctrine of Ethos, Sam Friend's Secure and
Fastened, Mendacity's self-titled debut, as well as Alejandra Alberti's
upcoming project.
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