David Bondelevitch

Since: 2026 | Position: Contributor | Location: Denver | Page Views: 500

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About Me

Emmy-winning Music Editor

David is an Associate Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Colorado Denver. He has credits on over 200 films and television shows. He won an Emmy for music editing in 2001 for the historical drama The Hunley, starring Armand Assante and Donald Sutherland. He has won two Motion Picture Sound Editors “Golden Reel” awards for music editing: one for the Showtime television musical Ruby’s, starring Angela Bassett, and the other for the IMax documentary Island of the Sharks. He has been nominated for the award a total of twenty-two times.

David is the Past President and has been a Board Member of the Motion Picture Sound Editors since 1997. He has also served as the Vice President, Secretary, and Board Member of the Cinema Audio Society from 2006 - 2022. David is also a member of the Recording Academy and was on the Board of Governors of the San Francisco chapter. AFM (Local 47), BMI, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the International Documentary Association, and Film Independent.

David is the only person ever to earn concurrent Bachelor’s degrees from the Berklee College of Music and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, matriculating in the same four-year period.

While at Berklee, he studied Jazz Composition with legendary educator Herb Pomeroy and played in his ensemble. David also studied composition with Phil Wilson (of the Woody Herman and Buddy Rich bands) and Greg Hopkins (of the Buddy Rich band). He received his Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Composition and Arranging and took several courses on Film Scoring.

While at MIT, David studied music theory with John Oliver (conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus), piano with Marek Zebrowski (now director of the Polish Music Center at USC), and traditional composition with Ed Cohen. David continued his private studies on trumpet with Charles Schlueter, principal trumpet of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

David played with the MIT Symphony Orchestra performance of the Persichetti Piano Concerto and Stravinsky’s Firebird at Carnegie Hall. He also played in the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble (directed by Herb Pomeroy). His performances with the Festival Jazz Ensemble included two awards for Outstanding Ensemble at the prestigious Notre Dame Collegiate Jazz Festival. David also composed several pieces specifically for the Ensemble. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Visual Design, with a Humanities Concentration in Music.

While in graduate school at the University of Southern California Cinema School, David composed and performed the musical scores for a number of his student films, ranging in style from Dixieland to contemporary atonal.

After receiving his MFA, David became a music editor in the film and television industry, working with composers including Branford Marsalis, Randy Edelman, Mason Daring, Christopher Lennertz, David Kitay, Bennett Salvay, David Bell, Daniel Licht, David Schwartz, and Alan Williams. He has conducted several choral sessions for films, including Black Knight (starring Martin Lawrence), and Tortilla Heaven (starring George Lopez). He has also had several compositions performed in films. He is a composer/publisher member of Broadcast Music, Inc.

While teaching at USC, David instituted semesterly meetings between the film and music programs to foster collaboration between the two schools. In addition, he instituted the first course in film music for aspiring filmmakers, Directing the Composer. He has also been interviewed along with composers Elmer Bernstein and David Raksin in Trojan Family Magazine. His musical analysis of the score to the film North by Northwest has been published on the web and is required reading at several universities.

David’s musical education began at age nine, when he took up the trumpet after seeing Louis Armstrong on television. Also in elementary school, he began teaching himself piano and took recorder lessons. By the time he reached high school in Swampscott, Massachusetts, David was playing lead trumpet and flugelhorn in the jazz, concert, and marching bands and attended several jazz camps. He also studied privately with Paul Fontaine (featured soloist with the Woody Herman band).

In his senior year, David participated in a special program that allowed him to teach brass and percussion full-time to elementary and junior high school students. He also sang bass in the school’s chorus. In addition, he was the interim conductor of his high school jazz band while the director was on medical leave. Self-taught in music theory and arranging, he began arranging for the jazz and marching bands at his high school, as well as for his own small jazz group, which performed locally.

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My Jazz Story

I love jazz because... I grew up listening to it! I was first exposed to jazz... on television by Louis Armstrong when I was five. I met ... Maynard Ferguson The best show I ever attended was... João Gilberto The first jazz record I bought was... Feels So Good - Chuck Mangione My advice to new listeners... keep an open mind Or whatever else you have in mind.