greg laliberte - a woodwind specialist

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Greg LaLiberte has been a private music teacher for 38 years. Besides serving as Interim Flute Instructor at CU Boulder, Flute Instructor at Colorado State University, and Saxophone Instructor at the University of Colorado, Denver, he founded the winds program at Boulder's Shining  Mountain Waldorf School, and founded the Boulder Samba School. Greg has also worked extensively as a private and group instructor in many public schools in the Albuquerque, NM and Boulder, CO school systems, elementary through high school. Greg was also the woodwind music teacher at New Mexico's Hummingbird Music Camp and the lead instructor at the Boulder Summer Jazz Camp. He has led many master classes at colleges in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Arizona.   

With an ongoing private music studio in Boulder, Greg provides woodwind lessons  and teaches passionate students of all ages and levels from the Boulder/Denver area. Many of his former students are now accomplished professional musicians locally and nationally, and many others have found success in amateur groups or in their school ensembles. Greg adapts to all learning styles and helps his students  progress at their own pace and in ways that inspire them.  With Greg's skilled and inspiring instruction, you can learn to read music or play by ear, to memorize, to improvise, to compose, to play in a band, to win an audition, or to learn to play that piece you thought was beyond possible.

Greg's repair skills began at thirteen years of age when he studied how to repair bicycles from a book and completely overhauled his own 10-speed, then continued with other family bikes. He also began to work on one of his father's cars and moved on to his own vehicles at nineteen. By the time Greg was 30, he had pulled three engines, rebuilt two of them, converted an automatic transmission car to manual, rebuilt a manual transmission, rebuilt various brake and heater systems and carburetors, and changed out virtually every component of a car while learning all other aspects of auto maintenance.  

Greg's instrument repair life began as an eighteen-year-old when he completely dismantled and repaired his Conn alto saxophone on his mother's kitchen table, creating a very playable instrument using rubber bands to replace broken springs and masking tape to make various adjustments. His fellow college jazz ensemble mates learned of this and suddenly he was repairing multiple instruments. A year later, Greg sent his Cigar Cutter Selmer alto saxophone to Boston's Emilio Lyons (considered by many to be the finest repairman in the world) for an overhaul. After studying Mr. Lyons' handiwork, Greg was soon face-to-face with the repairman in his Boston shop, asking questions about his methods and requesting further  refinements of certain repairs. Mr. Lyons then started asking Greg  questions about how he learned what he knew, saying in his thick Italian  accent, "You have eye for this."  

After  moving to Boulder in 1989, Greg bought out the woodwind tools and supplies of a repair shop going out of business and deepened his  knowledge of repair methods by studying the texts: Band Instrument Repairing Manual, by Erick D. Brand; Practical Band Instrument Repair Manual, by Clayton H. Tiede; A Guide To Repairing Woodwinds, by Ronald Saska; A Clarinetist's Notebook: Care and Repair, by Robert Schmidt; and The Complete Guide to Flute and Piccolo, by J. James Phelan. Greg has also studied countless articles published in TechniCom,  a periodical by NAPBIRT (The National Association of Professional Band  Instrument Repair Technicians) and consulted in person with many repair technicians throughout the country. 

After years of overhauling all of  his own instruments and those of his friends, he finally hung out his shingle in 2000, serving Boulder/Denver musicians ever since.   As an accomplished woodwind player, Greg knows how to "get it right" in his woodwind repair shop. He enjoys the challenges, the problem solving, and setting up instruments to the preferences of the owners.

He has trained with David and Joel Straubinger at their shop/school in Indianapolis, and is Straubinger Certified.

Flute repair, saxophone repair, clarinet repair, oboe repair and bassoon repair...Greg does it all.   

As a woodwind specialist, Greg has performed with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the New Mexico  Symphony Orchestra, The Temptations, The Four Tops, the Boulder Philharmonic, Rita Moreno, Barry Manilow, the Opera Orchestra of Albuquerque, Paul McCandless, Art Lande, Kai Eckhardt, Ty Burhoe, Bill Douglas, and in the LaLiberte  Duo with his pianist mother, Patricia LaLiberte. He has won several competitions with the National Flute  Association, is recorded on many CD’s as a sideman, and performs regularly throughout Colorado and the Midwest as a classical, jazz, and Brazilian musician. Formerly, Greg was the Instructor of Flute at  Colorado State University and Instructor of Saxophone at the University  of Colorado, Denver, as well as Interim Flute Instructor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He founded the Boulder Samba School and the Colorado Brazil Fest, as well as co-founded the Boulder-based  Brazilian band, Ginga. 

Greg performs on flute, saxophones, clarinet, oboe, vocals, and Brazilian percussion. He is a composer of jazz and Brazilian music and holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University  of Minnesota, a Master of Music degree from the University of New  Mexico, and most of a Doctorate of Music degree from the University of  Colorado, Boulder.  In Colorado, Greg has performed at virtually all of the area's significant venues including Boettcher Hall, Fiddlers Green, Red Rocks, Chautauqua, Dazzle Jazz, Oriental Theater, Boulder Theater, Fox Theater, Macky Auditorium, Pepsi Center, Longmont Jazz Festival, Colorado Brazil Fest, Vail Jazz  Festival, Telluride Jazz Festival, etc.