STU Fine Arts gains award-winning instructor Zachary Greer

Zachary Greer, a STU BA'16 alumnus, is an award-winning composer who will join the Fine Arts Department. (Credit: STU Communications).

Award-winning STU alumnus Zachary Greer is set to return to his stomping grounds as a part-time instructor in the Fine Arts Department. 

He will be teaching the Music for Film and Television course in the upcoming winter semester.

Greer graduated from STU in 2016, going on to study for a year at Memorial University of Newfoundland before pursuing a Master’s degree in music composition from the University of Ottawa – all while still composing music for film and television projects.

Greer credits his music foundation to the variety of courses he took under Martin Kutnowski, director of the Fine Arts Department at STU.

“A lot of Martin's courses were very diverse in what you were talking about. There were lots of different things – very philosophical at times, but also really in-depth theoretical practice … I definitely would not be where I am today without it,” he said.

Greer came upon the opportunity to teach at STU when he returned to Fredericton.

He said that completing his master degree led him to champion film and television music at a post-secondary level.

“I would say, often in music programs, it's very under-appreciated, the art form of music for digital media,” he said. “It's just not held in as high regard as classical music and other contemporary music … so I've always gotten more into the idea of really championing the importance."

In September, Greer won a Canadian Screen Music Award in the category Best Original Score for his work on the docuseries Into the Fray – All the Quiet Voices, a win that he described as “a very, very nice shock.”

With his brother as the creator of the docuseries, Greer was able to collaborate with him to create a score that complemented the atmosphere and cinematography, even before the series was finished.

“We really just had an idea of the tone based on some other references for different movies … and then I basically just went and started writing music,” he said. “Once we had scenes and footage and everything, we then started to see how things pieced together and how it felt with the picture and then everything unfolded from there.”

His music journey began “late” when he picked up his guitar in his senior year of high school. He was self-taught before he began formal training at STU.

“I really just was a big fan of movies,” he said. “When I started playing guitar, I started to get into writing my own stuff, but not songs in particular … I was really into coming up with moods or atmospheres. Then my whole journey through STU was basically just getting the foundation of the theory and composition.”

In his class, Greer hopes to offer a fresh and engaging perspective on music in digital media, whether it be helping students to find ways to get into the field or training the ears of movie viewers.

“There's music everywhere and people are creating music for all those different mediums,” he said. "The hope is to give people a new perspective on what the possibilities are for getting into

[music] … it really can sort of spark an interest for people in many different areas.”