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PETER DENEFF

Peter Deneff grew up in a musical home, exposed to classical music, Greek songs, and the Beatles. After many years of classical piano lessons and playing Greek gigs, he began jazz studies with the world-renowned pianist Mike Garson. During this time he also studied many ethnic styles that eventually led to the development of compositional style as well as the formation of his original ethno-European jazz group Excursion. He studied music composition and film scoring at California State University Long Beach, where he earned his bachelors and masters degrees in music composition. While at CSULB, Deneff composed his Three Greek Dances for string quartet and Hellenic Village Suite for modified wind quintet.

Peter has written many best-selling books for Hal Leonard Corporation and has produced thousands of audio arrangements for Yamaha, Hal Leonard, and PianoDisc. His original music and scoring was featured in the award-winning Charlie Sheen film, Five Aces. Deneff also composed the score for the 2012 feature film Jack London's Love of Life which was a finalist for best film score at the 2012 Moondance Film Festival in New York and a "best of fest" winner at the Great Lakes Film Festival and the Snowdance film Fesival in Washington State.

More recently, he has composed a score for the short film, Annie Awards: 40 Years which debuted at the 40th Annual Annie Awards at UCLA Royce Hall. Deneff's Three Greek Dances for string quartet made it's international debut in Perth, Australia earlier in 2013. Peter finished composing music for the feature length documentary, "A Journey into the Holocaust," which was completed in late 2013. He also has been composing music for a series of webisodes for ASIFA Hollywood.

On the academic side, Peter teaches music theory, jazz improv, piano, and music technology at Cypress College in Cypress, CA.