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Pete Calandra
Pete Calandra is a prolific composer and keyboard player. Three of his recent albums of original music -- Carpe Noctem 2018 First Light 2015 and The Road Home 2017 -- were nominated for Zone Music Reporter Award
As a Film & TV composer, Calandra has scored over 100 films and wrote over 2500 compositions for television. He has composed music for every major television network including the FIFA World Cup Theme for FOX Sports, the Special Olympics World Games and Invictus Games Theme for ESPN, as well as writing music for the Kennedy Center Honors on CBS in 2015, 2016 2017, 2019 and 2020. He also garnered acclaim for composing music to Jellysmoke, a film which won the Los Angeles Film Festival and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, and Unknown Soldier, a film which won the Los Angeles and Philadelphia Film Festivals and also was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.
Calandra has been immersed in the New York City music scene for most of his life. As a keyboard player he performed in the Broadway productions of Miss Saigon for 10 years, The Lion King, Les Miserables, The Phantom Of The Opera, and Little Shop Of Horrors. In addition to his Broadway resume -- which includes first chair keyboard player positions for many of those productions -- he has also performed with the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra, NY Pops Orchestra, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Don Cherry, Aretha Franklin, Allen Ginsberg, Annie Golden, Donna McKechnie, Lillianne Montevecchi, and he spent 16 years as the keyboard player in the NYC-based Climax Band, the creative vehicle for artist and musician Larry Rivers. In addition to his keyboard and compositional skills, he is also an accomplished guitarist and multifaceted studio engineer versed in the arts of tracking and mixing.
Currently, Calandra is on the faculty at the Aaron Copland School Of Music at Queens College, CUNY teaching Audio/MIDI, Film Scoring and Music Composition to both graduate and undergraduate students. He is also a Yamaha Endorsed Artist.