Greg Bruce is an improvisor, composer, and saxophonist searching for new sounds and modes of performance through obsolete technology. His work is an anarchistic amalgam of contemporary classical techniques, improvised folk melodies, and minimalist ostinati. He harnesses the forgotten power of acoustic feedback, contact microphones, and tape media, using breath energy to drive his saxophones through visceral machines. Through this work he investigates the human/machine dialectic and seeks to invoke a post-digital future: when art and science are noisily wrested from their slavery to the algorithm.
Hailing from St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Greg is a Doctor of Musical Arts who has spent over 20 years in the music industry as a side-musician, soloist, composer/arranger, and band leader. During this time he has drawn on his training in classical and jazz to record, tour, and perform in every setting imaginable: from conferences in the US, to street parties in Canada, to palaces in Russia.
Greg earned his DMA form the University of Toronto, where he designed a microphone-augmented saxophone capable of producing controlled, dynamic, acoustic feedback tones that act independently of its conventional sound. Greg carried out this innovative research under a two-year Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship.
As an educator, Greg has been teaching for over 15 years. He has worked as an instructor at Memorial University and has maintained a private studio throughout his teaching career. He has adjudicated festivals and competitions, and has led countless masterclasses and workshops on topics such as saxophone technique, improvisation, electroacoustic music, and research-creation. In the 23/24 academic year, Greg worked as an applied music instructor at the College of the North Atlantic in St. John’s, and now works full time as a SSHRC postdoctoral scholar at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music.