I, Andy Pesich, multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, arranger and educator received my M.A. in Music from UCLA in 1976 with Boris Kremenliev as his advisor. While at UCLA I also studied film scoring with David Raksin, in a class in competition with James Horner. As a teaching assistant one of my jobs was as assistant conductor of the UCLA Madrigal Singers. My first published composition “Praise His Name” (after Psalm 135) for Tenor, Chorus and Organ was published in 1979.
Between 1973 and 1976 I was employed also as a singing member of the F.E.L. (Foundation for English Liturgy) Schola Cantorum. Between 1976 and 1979 I was employed in a number of community colleges, notably El Camino, as an instructor.
After 1979 I continued teaching privately but opted to make a living otherwise outside of music (I also hold a 1996 B.S. in Computer Science from Long Beach State). In 1981 I formed the “Galleon” New-Wave trio which played a number of then popular nightclubs including Madame Wong’s, Ice House, and Gazzari’s. In the 1980’s he joined apparently the last incarnation of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra under Johnny Cress (who inherited the Tommy Dorsey charts). I have published a number of compositions in the last few decades, notably saxophone quartets for Dorn Publications.
In the late 1990s I formed the first incarnation of Très L.A. with violinist/pianist Marc Shapiro, who moved to San Francisco and is now part of the San Francisco Symphony. Très L.A. was reincarnated in 2003 with Ron Lemos (now deceased but who wrote a jazz guitar method book for Hal Leonard) and Ted Bell, flute and saxophone. Recently, there was yet another incarnation of Très L.A. but was short-lived.