Matthew Pellegrino

I’m Matt Pellegrino, the Lead Composition and Songwriting teacher at Usdan. I started Usdan in 2011 playing oboe in the band with Mr. Schecher as a Music Staff Intern, after which I continued to work at Usdan as a Band Assistant until 2017. I studied music composition first at SUNY Fredonia, and then at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore for both my Master’s and Doctorate. Throughout the year, I’m either teaching music or writing new music for bands, orchestras, and traditional Korean ensembles. These days much of my work is about Korean music, so I often get to travel to Korea for concerts, which is one of my favorite parts of my job as a composer. A fun fact about me is that I have 3 cats named Gnocchi, Meera, and Wally.