John Sawoski Bio
John Sawoski, born in Philadelphia, has been a Los Angeles-based multi-keyboardist, composer, and musical director since 1985. Besides serving as principal keyboardist for The Riverside County Philharmonic and The Capistrano Valley Symphony (which he has also guest conducted), he has performed with The Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, The Pageant of the Masters Orchestra, The Pasadena Pops, The Long Beach Symphony, The San Bernardino Symphony, The Redlands Symphony, The California Pops, The Golden State Pops, and The Orange County Four Seasons Orchestra. Hehas played for American Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, for the Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Awards (televised on KCET), Les Miserables, Wicked, Avenue Q, The Color Purple, Legally Blonde, Rock of Ages, 9 to 5, Seussical, Spamalot, The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, A Chorus Line, Both Barrels: A Salvo of John Forster Songs, The Radio City Christmas Spectacular, Disney’s Beauty and The Beast, The Secret Garden, Cathy Rigby’s Peter Pan, The Mark Taper Forum, The Pageant of the Masters, and Disney’s Candlelight Concert. He has also accompanied Frank Sinatra Jr., Michael Feinstein, Michael Crawford, Dale Kristien, Rachel York, Lisa Vroman, Monica Yunus, Davis Gaines, Sam Harris, Lucie Arnaz, Jim Carrey, Seth MacFarlane, Johnny Crawford, Bobby Burgess, Mable King, Audra McDonald, Regis Philbin, Susan Lucci, Jack Imel, Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis, Jr., Taylor Hicks, and many others. Aside from performing throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, Mr. Sawoski has created hundreds of orchestrations and arrangements for singers for whom he has accompanied and music directed, including The Leading Ladies, Gregg Marx, Leslie Zemeckis, Dennis McNeil, Rodney Gilfry, Yma Sumac, and Marnie Breckenridge. His arrangements and orchestrations have been performed by the Philly Pops (arrangement only), Stockton Symphony, The Colorado Springs Philharmonic, the Boca Pops, The Claflin Hill Symphony Orchestra, the Capistrano Valley Symphony, the Jerry Lewis Telethon orchestra, and many orchestras and ensembles at Hollywood recording sessions. He has composed, arranged, and recorded for numerous film and TV scores including The Starter Wife, ShowBoy, Winning Ugly: Twenty Years Later (for the Chicago White Sox), The Woman Chaser, Day of Atonement, and Lemo (for Finnish composer Tuomas Kantelinen); composed music for three musicals performed at Stanford University (his alma mater); orchestrated and arranged for Ed Begley’s new musical César and Rubén; arranged and done keyboard-programming for workshop presentations of the new musical An Officer and A Gentleman (which ran in Australia Spring 2012); and has played on camera on Walk Hard, Rumor Has It, Las Vegas, Will & Grace, Veronica’s Closet, LA Confidential, The Wedding Singer, Frasier, Man on the Moon, and HBO’s Live From Baghdad. Mr. Sawoski played on and recorded flutist Zachary Valenzuela’s recent album, Masterworks for Flute, as well as playing and arranging on Peter Sheridan’s low flute album Below (Move Records, Australia). His other recording credits include playing keyboards for Robert Drasnin’s album Voodoo II(Dionysus Records), The Adam Yurman Project (Crown Records, Tokyo), jazz musician Carl Rigoli’s albums, and for Saylor Shin (Korean vocalist and #1 hit songwriter). He is currently involved with numerous arranging, orchestrating, composing, and recording projects in Los Angeles.
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