John Sawoski Bio
Philadelphia-born John Sawoski is a Los Angeles-based musical director, conductor, multi-keyboardist, composer, arranger-orchestrator, and music producer whose career spans musical theatre, orchestral performance, film and television, higher education, and studio recording.
Sawoski has served as principal keyboardist for the Pageant of the Masters Orchestra, Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, Riverside County Philharmonic, and Capistrano Valley Symphony, which he has also guest conducted. His orchestral credits include performances with the Los Angeles Master Chorale Orchestra, Pasadena Pops, Long Beach Symphony and Pops, Pacific Symphony, New West Symphony, San Bernardino Symphony, Redlands Symphony, Andrea Morricone’s Amor Symphonic Orchestra, California Pops, and Disney’s Candlelight Orchestra. He has performed for four U.S. presidents—Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and Joe Biden—as well as Mexican President Vicente Fox.
His extensive musical-theatre credits include Back to the Future, MJ, Miss Saigon, Disney’s Aladdin, Les Misérables, The Book of Mormon, Newsies, Wicked, The Color Purple, Legally Blonde, The Radio City Christmas Spectacular, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Cathy Rigby’s Peter Pan, and The Secret Garden. He played keyboards on the first national tour of The Secret Garden and returned to the work as pianist and associate conductor for its 2023 Broadway-bound revival at the Ahmanson Theatre. Recent appointments include musical director, keyboardist, and conductor for The SpongeBob Musical at Santa Monica College; substitute musical director and accompanist for productions at the USC School of Dramatic Arts; and staff accompanist and part-time faculty member at AMDA College of the Performing Arts.
Sawoski has accompanied an extraordinary range of artists, including Plácido Domingo, Il Volo, Bernadette Peters, Frank Sinatra Jr., Michael Feinstein, Idina Menzel, Michael Crawford, Audra McDonald, Jackie Evancho, Seth MacFarlane, Jim Carrey, Lucie Arnaz, Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis Jr., and Rodney Gilfry.
As an arranger and orchestrator, he has created hundreds of works for vocalists, orchestras, theatrical productions, and recording sessions. His arrangements and orchestrations have been heard in performances by the Philly Pops, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, Stockton Symphony, Boca Pops, Claflin Hill Symphony Orchestra, Capistrano Valley Symphony, and numerous Hollywood studio ensembles. His theatrical projects include orchestrating and arranging Ed Begley Jr.’s musical César and Rubén and arranging and programming keyboards for developmental presentations of An Officer and a Gentleman.
His film and television work includes composing, arranging, or recording for The Starter Wife, ShowBoy, The Woman Chaser, and other productions, along with on-camera musical appearances in Walk Hard, Rumor Has It, L.A. Confidential, The Wedding Singer, Frasier, Man on the Moon, Will & Grace, Las Vegas, and HBO’s Live from Baghdad.
Sawoski’s recording credits encompass classical, jazz, theatrical, and popular music. He has arranged, performed, and produced projects for Judy Whitmore, Shmueli, Act 3, Zachary Valenzuela, Peter Sheridan, Robert Drasnin, Carl Rigoli, and other established and emerging artists. A graduate of Stanford University with a double major in music and history, he composed and orchestrated three musicals produced there and appeared as piano soloist with the Stanford Symphony.
He continues to work throughout Los Angeles as a musical director, performer, arranger-orchestrator, composer, educator, and recording producer.
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