Greg La Traille, (b. 1951), is an American composer and visual artist. He has been drawing and painting since childhood. Due to a youthful heart problem which prevented participation in sports, the young La Traille took up art, including model building and sculpture. An early interest in music was perked by his father’s love of Stravinsky and jazz and his mother’s love of Broadway musicals. LaTraille began piano lessons at an early age and while still in high school had composed piano music, chamber music and orchestral works including a viola concerto and a four movement symphony. While at Arizona State University, he studied with composers Ronald Lo Presti and Grant Fletcher as well as occasional private composition lessons with the visiting Vincent Persichetti, who spoke highly of La Traille’s concertos. 

His Oboe Quintet is available on Crystal Records, catalog # 723. Click here.

Through the 1990s, La Traille was the overseas Classical Music Sales Director for Tower Records. He set up classical music departments in Tower stores in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea.

Art:

As an artist, La Traille has worked in oils, pencil and pen & ink. His “Rhythm-Ink” series, featuring classical and jazz musicians, captures the flow and dynamic feel of music in performance. The style is reminiscent of Art Deco and the Jazz Age.
La Traille has also worked in oils producing highly individual landscapes, portraits and abstract designs. A versatile artist comfortable in realist as well as abstract art.

Aviation Art:

La Traille’s aviation art, usually in oils, has the rough and tumble quality and dramatic sense of adventure of model box top art from the 1950s and 60s. It may not be as exquisitely refined as other superb aircraft art but you can smell the oil and feel the propwash. In these paintings he captures accurately not only specific types of planes but more importantly a giddy feeling of flight and the precarious uneasiness of aircraft in motion.

Music:

Greg La Traille is also a composer with two degrees in music. His Oboe Quintet is available on CD from Crystal Records. Among his many compositions, he has composed a ballet titled “Ojibwa” (he is part Chippewa) as well as a "Viola Concerto" and a large four-movement "Symphony."

An orchestral composer while still  an undergrad at ASU, La Traille served as a Faculty Associate teaching advanced orchestration as well as 19th and 20th Century harmony. Currently, given the expense and bias involved with large orchestras performing original  21st century music, La Traille is now writing music using modern applications of computer software (Mark of the Unicorn). This generates state-of-the-art performances from sampled live instruments, and serves as a calling card for live performances.

Other pursuits, present and past:

Greg La Traille has an avid interest in amateur astronomy and has observed via various telescopes, objects in space including planets, star clusters and galaxies. With a small close-knit group of teen-aged friends, he made comedy films, inspired by their deep love of Laurel & Hardy, The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges and Jacques Tati.

He inherited from his father a love of rare and beautiful automobiles. In childhood, La Traille also built HO train sets and played in a Lockheed T33 Shooting Star jet flight simulator he and his father restored.