"I have been paying attention to Greg Reitan for several years now, finding him to be a pianist and composer who is already quite impressive and who seems to have a great deal of rapidly developing potential." - Orrin Keepnews, from the liner notes for Antibes, released on Sunnyside Records
A native of Seattle, WA, Greg Reitan's interest in music began at the age of ten. "I was fortunate to study with a number of notable musicians," he says, "[including] pianists Joni Metcalf, Dave Peck and composer/drummer Jerry Granelli. Summers were spent at the Bud Shank Jazz Workshop at Port Townsend, WA, where I studied piano with Hal Galper and arranging with John Clayton." He won two scholarships to the Berklee School of Music, and the Kreielsheimer Scholarship at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.
Greg relocated to Los Angeles in 1991, attended the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music as a Dean's Scholar, studying composition with Stephen Hartke and Frank Ticheli; piano with Milcho Leviev and Terry Trotter, and film composition with David Raksin and Christopher Young. Reitan was a finalist in the John Coltrane Competition and he was awarded the Harry Warren Prize for Film Scoring in 1995. Greg was a finalist in the Great American Jazz Piano Competition and the 1996 Hennessy Cognac Jazz Search in New York.