Mitchell J. Greco is Instructor of Music at West Liberty University, where he directs the Percussion Ensemble, Marching Hilltoppers Drumline, West Liberty Steel Bands, and West Liberty African Drum & Dance Ensemble. He also teaches applied percussion lessons, as well as courses on percussion fundamentals (for music education majors), world music (general studies), music technology, and professional development. Greco is a classical, popular and world music performer, as well as an ethnomusicology researcher. However, his primary passion is teaching his students, facilitating their creativity and encouraging lifelong learners that achieve their own virtuosity.
Greco is currently the President of the Percussive Arts Society West Virginia Chapter, a group dedicated to serving percussionists and educators across the state. He has given workshops and clinics for regional and national music education, ethnomusicology and percussion conferences. He earned master’s degrees from Appalachian State University (M.M. in Music Performance) and Kent State University (M.A. in Ethnomusicology), and bachelor’s degrees from SUNY Fredonia (B.A. in Music Performance, B.M. in History).
Greco primary research focus is the pedagogy and student cognition in world music ensembles. He is dedicated to respectfully playing and teaching Non-western music traditions that provide musical and cultural experiences that resonate with American students. He is practiced in various West African dance-drumming styles, the African balafon and gyil xylophones, steel pan music from Trinidad and Tobago, tabla from North India, marimba music from Mexico and Central America, and batá from Cuba. His ethnomusicology thesis focuses on teaching and learning traditional Ghanaian dance-drumming outside of the cultural context, a product of his five-year study with master Ghanaian xylophonist Bernard Woma and multiple studies in Ghana, West Africa.
He is a candidate for the Doctorate of Musical Arts at West Virginia University, where he held a Provost Fellowship and Graduate Teaching Assistantship for the World Music Center and Recording Technology Departments. He is currently writing his doctoral document that clarifies the multiple-percussion performance practice and builds a graduate level curriculum that spans the intermediate to advanced repertoire.
