Gregory Yasinitsky

Gregory Yasinitsky is a composer and saxophonist with over 140 published musical works performed in more than 30 countries in six continents around the world. He regularly accepts commissions for orchestral, jazz, and chamber works and is the recipient of grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer West, The Commission Project, Washington State Music Teachers Association, Washington Music Educators Association, and ASCAP. Gregory is a Regents Professor of Music and Coordinator of Jazz Studies at Washington State University.

Gregory also received GAP Awards in 1989 and 1998.

As part of his Fellowship’s Meet the Artist requirements, Gregory’s event involved several sessions at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington. The first was a presentation called “Genesis of a Concertino,” for students from both a music appreciation class and a second year music theory class. He discussed the creation of his Concertino for Flute and Orchestra, the performances it has received, the compositional ideas in the piece and the work’s recent release on CD. The second presentation was for a first-year theory class and he discussed compositional ideas and the formal structure of Jackknife, a piece for jazz big band. He also conducted an open rehearsal of two new pieces with the Clark College Jazz Band and Clark College Vocal Jazz. There were between 80-100 people at all of the events.