James Greiner is a singer, songwriter, classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, music teacher, and author.
Early Life
James Greiner’s first endeavored to write short stories when he was five. At seven, he began to play on a small keyboard that his parents bought for him. He wrote his first pop song the same year. After begging his parents to purchase an acoustic piano, he began taking piano lessons when he was eleven. Greiner began sketching his first classical piano ideas a year later.
In the sixth grade, James Greiner was the winner of a nationwide Haiku contest for a poem he wrote titled, “Buds in the Springtime.”
College years
Greiner attended Baldwin Wallace University. While at Baldwin Wallace, Greiner studied harmony with James Feldman and music composition with Loris Chobanian. Greiner wrote one piano composition while at Baldwin Wallace College’s Music Conservatory, an atonal piece titled, “Two Opposites.” During his college years, he began writing pop music. “My private composition lessons with Loris Chobanian would mainly feature classical music songs that I was working on, but I would also bring Loris pop songs. Even from the beginning of my songwriting career, I had an interest in writing both classical and pop music,” Greiner recalls.
2000s
In late 2006, Greiner formed the piano rock musical group Below Jupiter. Below Jupiter released three albums, Step Into Home Act I, (2007), Step into Home Act II, (2009), and Sonorous Dithyrambs, (2012). Reviews for Below Jupiter’s albums were generally positive: “The well-crafted melodic songs and dramatic elements really grab the listener,” said Peter Chakerian of Cool Cleveland.com on July 2, 2008, and Radar Music Review said “Below Jupiter will reinvent what you think of piano rock.”
Writing Career
In 2019, Greiner wrote a short illustrated children’s story titled, “The Evolution of Billy.” His first full length screenplay, “Blood Rebels,” was written in 2020.
In April of 2022, James Greiner released his first classical music album titled Keep on Living. The album featured three original classical piano songs: “Piano Sonata in E flat Minor,” an eleven-minute piece composed in 2015; “Fantasy in A flat Minor,” an eighteen-minute piece composed in 2016; and “Dance in E Minor,” a five-minute piece.
In the future, Greiner plans to release his debut solo art pop/rock album, The Highest Road. The album will feature Greiner on vocals, keys, drums, bass, and guitar.
Greiner is currently writing a book called, “Emet’s Journey,” a novel that will cover many subjects including nonviolence, freedom, literature, and art.