Dr. Mitch Greco

Dr. Mitch Greco is Assistant Professor of Music and the Director of Percussion and World Music. He directs the Percussion Ensemble and Marching Hilltoppers Drumline, as well as the world music ensembles, which includes the Advanced and Beginner Steel Bands, the African Drum & Dance Ensemble, and occasional “special topic” ensembles. He also teaches applied percussion lessons, as well as courses on percussion fundamentals (for music education majors), world music and ethnomusicology, music technology, and professional development for musicians.

Dr. Greco is the creator and director of the West Liberty Creative Musical Arts Competition (CMAC), an annual competition for high school students from West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio. He is also the co-chair of the West Liberty University Institutional Review Board (IRB), which reviews all faculty, staff and student research projects that utilize human subjects. Dr. Greco is currently the President of the Percussive Arts Society West Virginia Chapter and the West Virginia State Representative for the National Society of Steel Band Educators. He is an active member of the Society for Ethnomusicology.

Dr. Greco’s primary research focus is the pedagogy in world music ensembles and the cognitive processes in developing bimusicality (i.e. fluency in a second musical language). He is dedicated to respectfully playing and teaching non-western music traditions that provide musical and cultural experiences to American students and audiences. In the classical realm, his primary focus is solo and chamber literature for multiple percussion.