Instructor: Gregory Acker

Gregory Acker is a teaching and performing artist who plays multiple woodwinds and percussion instruments. With a classical and jazz flute background, including early jazz studies with Jamey Aebersold and flute lessons with Francis Fuge (LO), he branched into saxophone playing in jazz bands at Oberlin College, studying with Floyd “Candy” Johnson and Wendell Logan.

After college, he joined the Peace Corps for two assignments (Morocco and Togo), which inspired him to develop music in community settings back home, to learn to build homemade instruments, and to delve further into the “world winds.” The journey (including study-tours in Kerala, South India and Java and Bali, Indonesia), eventually led to an MA in Ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University (CT), as a graduate assistant and beginning flute instructor for Tanjore Viswanathan (South Indian flute) and Pak I.M. Harjito (Javanese suling).

In addition to flute and alto flute, he plays saxes ranging from bari to soprano (with a fun stop at C-melody along the way), digeridoos, bamboo flutes, and panpipes. He performs with the Andean fusion group Yapa, and also with Kuvebo West African Drum & Dance.