About Chris...
Music- Christopher has been a lifelong musician. Early on, he was steeped in music. Singing in the church children’s choir at a young age, his parents and teachers realized he had a penchant for music. At the age of nine, he started taking piano lessons from his mother, a remarkable pianist and accompanist. At age 11, he took up the Trumpet. Right off the bat, he started improving rapidly. Joining the school jazz band as well as the concert band, he maintained the first chair position throughout his middle school years. Starting in junior high, he decided to learn French Horn as well. His extremely good ear enabled him to learn the instrument very quickly, and he was pushed to the first chair position on Horn as well. When he entered high school, he had already had considerable experience with playing lead trumpet in jazz bands for four years, so he was immediately brought into the high school jazz band. Playing fourth trumpet in the band, he got even more experience with blending with a section, and also covering lead trumpet many times when the then-lead trumpet player was not up to the challenge. After that year, he was promoted to lead trumpet player in the jazz band, and held that position for the remaining years of high school. Meanwhile, his french horn abilities improved as well as he learned from his band teacher and his fellow older players. During this time, he joined a few bands outside of school. He joined the Seattle Youth Jazz Ensemble, and had the opportunity to play at many professional venues, including Tula’s jazz club, The Triple Door jazz club, as well as Seattle’s Benaroya Hall. These experiences served to fine-tune his skills, and in his senior year in high school, he received the Louis Armstrong Award, the award given to the best jazz musician in the school. After graduating high school, he was invited to go to Spain to teach French Horn to music students at a summer music camp in Toral de los Guzmanes. A year later, he started college in Lakewood, WA at Pierce College. Majoring in music, he received talent scholarships for all of his music courses. He was second chair trumpet in the community concert band that the college offered; in the Jazz band, he was quickly put in the lead trumpet spot once again. When going to school there, he was stretched once again, and really learned to play symphonic trumpet music as well as jazz music, both with proficiency. While there, the jazz band competed in the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Moscow, ID and they won first place in the college band division. Soon after that, he moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma with his family. There, he was immediately plugged into the local community college and was offered to play first trumpet once again in the symphonic band at the college. During the summer, playing opportunities dwindled, but he was once again asked to play at Tulsa Community College and received a full-ride music scholarship. He was invited to play first chair trumpet in concert band, French Horn in orchestra, and lead trumpet in the newly formed jazz band, as well as first chair trumpet in the college brass quintet. He has also composed 4 songs using only audio loops.
Writing- The writing journey of Christopher Greene has not been as long as his affair with music. In his senior year in high school he took a creative writing class, and fell in love with writing. During that class, he wrote over twenty poems, as well as more than five short stories, all above and beyond the requirements of the class. After graduating, he continued to write poetry and short stories until starting college a year later. When in college, he took a required English class, and his love for writing grew even more. His professor taught him many things to help in his writing process, and his writing matured as a result. When he learned of the imminent move to Oklahoma, he fell into a deep depression. When he moved with his family to Tulsa, his depression got even worse. But those feelings fueled him to write. He started journaling even more, and wrote more than 30 works of poetry in this time, as well as started writing two novel-length stories. Now, he continues to write as a hobby, and plans to take many more writing classes and continue to write throughout his life.
