Fulbright Scholar, composer, educator, and percussionist Gregory Beyer is a contemporary music specialist who blends the disciplines of orchestral, jazz, and world music into a singular artistic voice.
He is Artistic Director of Arcomusical, an organization dedicated to the Afro-Brazilian berimbau. Arcomusical has released two albums, MeiaMeia, (2016, Innova Recordings) and Spinning in the Wheel (2019, National Sawdust Tracks). Representing Arcomusical, Beyer has appeared on WNYC, WBEZ, and NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. Arcomusical received a 2016 Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant to create the twenty-minute, four-movement “Roda” with composer Elliot Cole. “Roda” has received over two dozen performances and most recently was performed as a concerto with the Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra as “Roda Grande.”
Professor Beyer is the Director of Percussion Studies at Northern Illinois University, and is a member of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition’s Grossman Ensemble.