Short Bio
Gregory Fritze is a prize-winning composer and Fulbright Scholar. His compositions have been performed more than one thousand times in twenty-six countries. He has written over one-hundred compositions for orchestra, band, chamber ensembles and soloists. He won over seventy composition awards including First Prize in 2022 American Prize in Composition – Pops division, First Prize in in 2017 WASBE Composition Contest, annual ASCAP awards and others. Several professional ensembles have commissioned and performed his music including the Rhode Island Philharmonic, The Army Band “Pershing’s Own”, The Banda Municipal of Madrid, and others. His music is published by several publishers in the US, South America and Europe and recorded on Albany Records, Mark Records and others. He has been a guest lecturer at many universities and music festivals in the United States, Canada, Japan, South America and Europe. He taught at Berklee College of Music as Professor and Chair of Composition, Tuba instructor and Wind Ensemble Conductor, teaching over 12,000 students over 36 years.
He was Principal Tubist with the Rhode Island Philharmonic from 1983 to 2016. Other performance activities include over one thousand brass concerts as performer and conductor with the Boston Brass Ensemble, the Cambridge Symphonic Brass Ensemble, The Colonial Tuba Quartet, The Harvey Phillips Tuba Consort, and others.
He has a Bachelor degree in Composition from the Boston Conservatory and a Master of Music degree in Composition from Indiana University.
Long Bio
Gregory Fritze is a prize-winning composer and Fulbright Scholar. His compositions have been performed more than one thousand times in twenty-six countries. He has written over one-hundred compositions for orchestra, band, chamber ensembles and soloists. He won over seventy composition awards including First Prize in 2022 American Prize in Composition – Pops division, First Prize in in 2017 WASBE Composition Contest, Menzione d’Onore (highest award given) of the Mario Bernardo Angelo-Comneno International Music Competition by the Accademia Angelica Costantiniana Arti E Scienze (Rome, Italy), First Prize Winner of Reneé Fisher Composition 2007, First Prize in 1991 TUBA International Composition Competition, First Prize Winner in Concurso Bienal de Composición de Musica para Banda, Ciudad de Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Spain), annual ASCAP awards and others.
Several professional ensembles have commissioned and performed his music including the Rhode Island Philharmonic, The Army Band “Pershing’s Own”, The Banda Municipal of Madrid, Orquesta Sinfonica de Villa Maria (Argentina), The Banda Municipal of Bilbao, The Spanish Brass and others. His music is published by several publishers in the US, South America and Europe and recorded on Albany Records, Mark Records and others.
He taught at Berklee College of Music as Professor and Chair of Composition, Tuba instructor and Wind Ensemble Conductor, teaching over 12,000 students over 36 years. Many of his former students are music teachers, music performers, conductors and composers.
He was Principal Tubist with the Rhode Island Philharmonic from 1983 to 2016. Other performances with the Boston Ballet Orchestra and other orchestras in the New England area. He performed with Itzhak Perlman, Ray Charles, Victor Borge, Henry Mancini, Mel Torme, Gunther Schuller, the Moody Blues and many others. He also played over one thousand brass concerts as performer or conductor with the Boston Brass Ensemble, the Cambridge Symphonic Brass Ensemble, The Colonial Tuba Quartet, The Harvey Phillips Tuba Consort, and others. He played in Carnegie Hall, Weil Recital Hall, Boston Symphony Hall, Sanders Theatre, Providence Performing Arts Center and others.
His Fulbright research in 1977 has been Compositions for wind instruments by Spanish Composers. Since 1993 he has traveled to Spain over sixty times, often giving lectures and concerts. He has been a guest lecturer at many universities and music festivals in the United States, Canada, Japan, South America and Europe.
He has a Bachelor degree in Composition from the Boston Conservatory, where he studied composition with John Adams and tuba with Chester Roberts and a Master of Music degree in Composition from Indiana University, where he studied composition with Thomas Beversdorf, John Eaton and Fred Fox and tuba with Harvey Phillips.
He was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1954, started piano with Helen Sell at age six and started playing tuba at age 10. While in high school he studied piano with Ralph Kemmerer, took composition and theory lessons with James Craig, played organ in several rock bands and was student director for the high school band for two years when he also lead the pep band. He now lives in Daytona Beach Shores with his wife Linda and their wire fox terrier Litro.
Selected Reviews
Tuba Safari – Albany Records
“Fritze’s music is generally light, lively, and entertaining, quite tonal but sometimes pungently dissonant.”
American Record Guide
“…an unabashed delight. …Without exception, every piece of [Gregory Fritze’s] here displays both a sure hand of technical craftsmanship and imaginative with that deftly exploit all the expressive approaches of the lower brass instruments while avoiding even a hint of monotony. …Urgently recommended not just for fanciers of tuba and low brass instruments, but to anyone willing to set aside possible stereotypical notions about such music and try something unfamiliar.”
Fanfare
Debut – MSR Classics – Christopher Atzinger, Piano
Atzinger is blessed with abundant energy, powerful fingers, a big sound and a natural musicality. He makes the best possible case for Gregory Fritze’s well made 1989 Sonata, moulding the jagged, proclamatory unison motifs and full-throated chords in contrary motion with immense authority, taking great care with the slow movement’s inside-the-piano strumming and plucking.
Gramophone
