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Leon Pendarvis, Musical Director/Conductor/Keyboards (1980-present)
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Leon Pendarvis, Musical Director/Conductor/Keyboards (1980-present)
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Promoted to Musical Director near the end of the 2001-2002 season, Leon Pendarvis is in his
thirty-second consecutive season
with the SNL Band, more years of service than any other player, perhaps in any
TV show band ever. He joined the
show with the 1980-1981 band led by Kenny Vance, during the forgettable Jean Doumanian regime. But he endured through the Ebersol era, and was the only
player invited back to a totally restocked band when Lorne Michaels began
producing the show again.
Leon has variously acted as keyboardist and conductor for the show and brings a long and weighty resume of musical experience He's also one of the keyboard players in the current incarnation of the Blues Brothers Band and helped back Jim Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and John Goodman at the halftime show of the Super Bowl in January 1997.
His chief pursuit, when not working on the show, is culinary arts. Leon graduated from a 570-hour course at Peter Kump's New York Cooking School.