Tony Blondal is a film and television orchestrator and conductor, and record arranger. He started out his musical career playing live (guitar) and doing studio recording sessions (guitar, mandolin, banjo, balalaika, charango and various instruments). He also pursued his other interests, which were writing orchestral and band arrangements for singers, and big band writing and arranging. Through this early work he met a group of TV composers who were busy and needed someone to help orchestrate and copy their music for weekly recording sessions. That experience led to other opportunities and started him on a new path, and he soon transitioned to film orchestration. To this day he still works in film primarily, but also occasionally in television and video games.