Peter Calandra

Peter Calandra is a New York City-based composer and pianist. He is known for his work composing music for television and film as well as conducting and playing piano in Broadway and Off Broadway productions. The former includes the FIFA Men's and FIFA Women's World Cup themes for FOX Sports and, starting 2015, the themes for the Special Olympics World Games and Invictus Games for ESPN, in film, 13th Child (2002), Unknown Soldier (2004), Jellysmoke (2005), and BearCity 2: The Proposal (2012). He has also composed the music for the Kennedy Center Honors.

On Broadway, Calandra has played keyboard for Miss Saigon, Les Misérables, and The Phantom of the Opera. He performed in and served as conductor and musical director for the original New York City production of Little Shop of Horrors. In his career as a pianist, he has performed with musical artists and orchestras including Aretha Franklin, The New York Pops, jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, Don Cherry, and actress/singer Annie Golden.

His own albums are Sunrise Over New York (2004), Late Night Christmas (2009), Satya (2011, with Bill Buchen & Stomu Takeishi), Ashokan Memories (2013), Inner Circle (2014), First Light (2015), The Road Home (2017), Piano Improvisations, Vol. 1, Carpe Noctem, Little Paws On The Walls (all 2018), Piano Improvisations, Vol. 2 (2019) and Ambient Tuesdays (2021). Calandra has a master's degree in Music Composition from Queens College, City University of New York and teaches Audio/MIDI Sequencing, Film Scoring and Music Composition at its Aaron Copland School of Music at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Calandra has played keyboard as part of a pit orchestra for a number of musicals. Some he is known for include Miss Saigon, Les Misérables, and The Phantom of the Opera. He performed in and also served as conductor and musical director for the original New York City production of Little Shop of Horrors at the Orpheum Theater.

Calandra has scored over 90 feature and short films and documentaries. For film scores and compositions, he uses a variety of instrumentation and styles. He has stated that most of the film music he writes "has a combination of orchestral, choral, piano, ethnic and electronic elements..." but he often alters his approach for certain films. As an example, for his score for Pat XO, an ESPN documentary on college basketball coach Pat Summitt, Calandra's score is based on acoustic guitars and live percussion. Calandra stated that for this score, he created a "roots oriented," "small ensemble" sound to match the down-to-earth qualities of the film.

One of Calandra's most well-known works is his score for the 2004 film Unknown Soldier by director Ferenc Tóth. For this score, which primarily features instrumental jazz, Calandra performed with saxophonist Dale Kleps, trumpeter Bud Burridge, bassist Kermit Driscoll, and drummer Howard Joines. Dr. Ana Isabel Ordonez of JazzReview praised the recording, stating that "Unknown Soldier's jazz score highlights bravery and the human social fracture in our society."

In 2011, Calandra composed music for the film Rise. Commissioned by U.S. Figure Skating, the film, a Fathom event that played in select theaters, starred Patricia Clarkson and Dakota Fanning, with appearances by American skaters like Dorothy Fleming, Michelle Kwan, and Scott Hamilton. It commemorated members of the U.S. figure skating team killed in the 1961 crash of Sabena Flight 548. Calandra composed an orchestral score as well as an original song which plays during the opening title sequence of the film.

Calandra's television composition credits include projects for the National Geographic Society, Sesame Workshop, ABC-Touchstone, NBC, Fox Sports, A&E, and Discovery Communications. A few of his songs from his 2003 soundtrack album Sunrise Over New York have also been used on The Weather Channel's Local on the 8s segments in early 2004. He also written a large amount of themes for television broadcast, theme packages for Fox Sports, ESPN, Bravo, NBC-Comcast SportsNet, MSG, SportsNet New York, and the Big Ten Network. Most recently this has included the FIFA Men's and Women's World Cup themes for FOX Sports and the themes for the Special Olympics World Games[10] and Invictus Games for ESPN starting in 2015.

He composed the music for the Kennedy Center Honors in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2019[10] which airs every year on CBS.[11][12] In 2020, Calandra composed three nights of the music for the 2020 Democratic National Convention.[10]

In his career as a pianist, Calandra has performed with musical artists and orchestras including The New York Pops, jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, trumpeter Don Cherry, soul singer Aretha Franklin, Allen Ginsberg, and actress/singer Annie Golden. He also spent many years as a keyboard player in New York City-based artist and musician Larry Rivers' Climax Band.