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House Blend
Violinist Drew Tretick
Episode 17a • April 2011
©2011 SCVTV & Stephen K. Peeples
[SEE ALL EPISODES]
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Drew Tretick is a favorite with audiences for his expressive performances and warm stage presence. A graduate of the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, he has recorded and performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, Slovak Radio Orchestra, Missouri Symphony and others. His appearances have taken him from Carnegie Hall to Las Vegas, throughout many countries in Europe and Asia, and by invitation of Andrea Bocelli, they performed together raising over $100,000 for Bocelli's ARPA Foundation and the Children's Partners Foundation for cystic fibrosis. Drew was also recently featured performing for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in Las Vegas with Terry Fator and Clint Holmes. He has appeared in television and radio broadcasts including NBC, ABC, ESPN and PBS and has collaborated in recordings or on stage with Chris Isaak, Glenn Campbell, Sandy Patti, Tony Bennett, Doc Severinsen, Stevie Wonder, Dionne Warwick, the late John Denver and others.
Drew began violin study at age five and was performing professionally before his teens. As a high school senior at the North Carolina School of the Arts, he was nominated by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and competed for and won the Presidential Scholar in the Arts award at Princeton University. He then went on to attend The Juilliard School where he received the Lincoln Center Scholarship and completed both his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in four years. His Master's Recital was the first ever to include performance on an electric violin and was broadcast over National Public Radio. His teachers include: Robert Slaughter, Sally Peck, Josef Gingold, Robert Mann, Nobuko Imai, Paul Doktor, William Lincer and Atar Arad. Drew also studied at the Aspen Music Festival in the summers while at Juilliard. Upon graduating, he was appointed Associate Professor and one of the youngest faculty members ever at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
He has a loyal worldwide fanbase from his appearances at Disneyland's Downtown Disney Resort, and has made appearances in Las Vegas where a survey recognized him as a favorite entertainer at The Venetian. Olympic gold medal winners, pair skaters Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze selected the opening track of his Romantica album, Time to Say Goodbye for the Champions On Ice tour. Other international skating stars such as Viktoria Borzenkova and Andrei Chuvilaev are currently using his music in their skating programs as well.
Drew served as Artistic Representative for Zeta, a violin division of Gibson Guitar, and more recently collaborated with an acclaimed instrument builder to create an electric violin that is innovative and appealing to both students and professionals. All members of his family are professional musicians including three sisters who perform with the Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Phoenix symphonies and a brother who is a concert flutist. His mother and father have had distinguished performing and teaching careers.
Drew's genealogy includes a rich heritage of American legends and European musical roots. He is a descendant of Thomas Stone (signer of the Declaration of Independence) and the great American frontiersman, Daniel Boone. His father was a child prodigy on violin and his family came from Russia. A relative, Stanley Tretick was a famous photographer to several American presidents, and was especially known for his photography of John F. Kennedy. Drew's grandfather was an eminent lawyer who was the first director of the State of Colorado Water Conservation Board, and in Washington D.C. negotiated riparian water rights.
Drew believes in charitable work and has appeared in a number of prominent charities, and contributes from his website to his favorite causes.
ABOUT THE HOST
"House Blend" host, writer and co-producer Stephen K. Peeples is a
Grammy-nominated record producer ("Monterey International Pop Festival,"
1992), award-winning radio writer-producer ("The Lost Lennon Tapes,"
1988-1990) and veteran record company executive (Capitol, Elektra/Asylum,
Rhino). A Canyon Country resident since early 1988, Peeples wrote about the
SCV music scene for The Signal newspaper in 2004-2006 and was Managing
Editor of the My Santa Clarita community website in 2006-2007. He was The
Signal's Online Editor and social media manager from October 2007 to May
2011. In 2009 he was honored when The-Signal.com was named "Best Website"
by the California Newspaper Publishers Association. A jazz and rock drummer
since he was 12, Peeples was a member of the underground West L.A. garage
band Peaking Duck from 1977-2008. In 2010, he co-founded the SCV-based jazz
quartet RainTree.
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