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Lenny
Williams and Chris Biondo
have composed over 300 original scores for documentary films.
Since 1995 they have worked extensively with National Geographic
Television and Film, writing music in a wide range of genres.
Williams • Biondo won Emmy Awards in 2001 and 2002
in the category of Outstanding Individual Achievement
in a Craft: Music and Sound. They have also produced
recordings that reached Gold and Platinum status in the
U.S. and internationally, including three albums that reached
number one in the UK charts.
Lenny
Williams graduated from the Peabody Conservatory
of Music in 1983 with a degree in music composition. Following
graduation, he worked in the Washington, D.C. area as a
jazz pianist and accompanist. He eventually became a regular
performer at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,
playing with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Kennedy
Center Opera Orchestra, and for productions of nationally
touring musicals.
From
1993 to the present Lenny has been a pianist with the political
satire group The Capitol Steps, performing nearly a thousand
shows throughout the United States. From 1988 to 1996 he
was the pianist for the late Eva Cassidy, whose posthumous
recordings have sold over five million copies worldwide.
As a member of the Eva Cassidy Band he has been awarded
Gold and Platinum records in many countries including the
USA, the UK, and Australia. Other notable musicians he has
performed with include Smokey Robinson, Anita Baker, Paul
Shaffer and the Late Night Band, Gloria Estefan, ’N
Sync, Cy Coleman, Stephanie Mills, and Chuck Brown.
Chris
Biondo has worked as a bassist, guitarist, keyboardist,
recording engineer, producer, and composer. A studio owner
and operator since 1983, he has recorded many local artists,
including the legendary "Godfather of Go-Go" Chuck
Brown. He has recorded well over 200 albums, ranging from
folk to rap, country to jazz, classical to rock, including
records for Motown, Columbia, Island, Def Jam and Virgin.
In
1986 Chris began recording the then-unknown singer Eva Cassidy.
For the next ten years he nurtured Cassidy’s development
as a recording artist, producing most of her recordings
available today. In 1990 he formed the Eva Cassidy Band,
which played a variety of local venues between 1990 and
1996. Following Cassidy's death in 1996, Chris completed
work on the 1997 album "Eva By Heart." Songs from
that album, and from two earlier Cassidy albums he produced,
were combined into the anthology album "Songbird"
which brought Eva Cassidy to worldwide posthumous fame.
Other songs Chris recorded with Eva Cassidy have been included
on the albums "Time After Time," "Imagine,"
and “American Tune.” He has received numerous
Gold and Platinum records for his work with Cassidy.
In
the late 1990s Chris changed the focus of his career from
recording bands to musical composition. Though he no longer
works with bands, he still records a few singers. He and
Williams produced Chuck Brown’s “Timeless”
album of jazz classics in 1997, and played in his jazz band
that year. He recorded Patti Wick’s CD “Love
Locked Out” in 2003, and with Lenny Williams produced
and recorded singer Grace Griffith's latest CD "Sands
of Time." Chris and Lenny also worked with Cathy Fink
and Marcy Marxer (8 time Grammy award nominees) on their
Grammy-nominated CD “Bon Appetit!”
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