Hello

Chris Pedersen Jr., Conductor Emeritus, was born in Perth Amboy and was The Garden State Symphonic Band’s Conductor and Music Director for over half a century, having played solo clarinet with the Band for ten years prior to conducting.

 

Beginning his professional involvement with music at age thirteen by performing with a local Latin band, Mr. Pedersen had an extremely varied career, playing for operas, ballets, symphony orchestras, concert bands, show bands, ethnic bands, stage bands, and jazz and Dixieland bands. He performed regularly as a woodwind specialist at the PNC Bank Arts Center for over twenty-five years, as well as at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Carnegie Recital Hall, the Hubbard Auditorium at the Manhattan School of Music, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Town Hall, the Empire Room at the Waldorf Astoria, in several Broadway shows, and with The Goldman Band.  He is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music where he majored in the clarinet and studied conducting. 

 

The Garden State Symphonic Band, originally named the Goodwill Fife & Drum Corps and then the Bay City Band, has been recognized for over 100 years of music making. Chris was instrumental in obtaining special congratulatory citations, resolutions and/or proclamations for the GSSB by the US House of Representatives, the New Jersey State Legislature, the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders, and the Woodbridge Township Council. 

 

The Band is a fully professional musical ensemble modeled after the very successful Sousa Band of the early 20th Century, and it is one of the finest professional concert bands in the Country. While most band members reside in Central Jersey, several come from CT, NY, & PA. Many Band members are graduates of our most prestigious music conservatories, and some have played with major orchestras such as the NY Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, NJ Symphony, and the Pittsburgh Symphony, as well as in the pit orchestras of such Broadway successes as West Side Story, Man of La Mancha, Fiddler On the Roof, Phantom of the Opera, etc.

 

Chris’s aim was always to present quality music, performed at the highest level of musical artistry, by a truly professional band/wind ensemble, to as great an audience as possible. Back in the 1980s, the concerts had an audience of approximately 1,000. Chris wished to re-popularize the concert band and re-establish it as a legitimate vehicle of musical expression in our society. He was extremely proud of The Garden State Symphonic Band and grateful to Concerts By The Bay for supporting the Band all these years!