Guest Stars

Chris Kel­ley (Guitar)

Chris Kel­ley is the musi­cal direc­tor and plays Gui­tar for Band From TV. He has been play­ing pro­fes­sion­ally in and around Los Ange­les for over 20 years. Chris has been involved in record­ing projects, and var­i­ous Jazz and Rock bands includ­ing the Los Ange­les based Native Sun in the early 90s. Chris is also a song­writer and gui­tar teacher, (he has been rumored to have given one of Band From TVs high pro­file mem­bers a gui­tar les­son or two). He has a his­tory of putting his musi­cal tal­ents to good use, for sev­eral years he orga­nized and played in Whos Your Daddy? a band made up of par­ents from his daugh­ters ele­men­tary school in Bur­bank, play­ing var­i­ous fundrais­ers and school events. Music brings me so much joy in life, and it is even more delight­ful to share it with peo­ple. He is very proud to be involved in this band project where he can con­tinue to do what he loves and help make a dif­fer­ence for the many causes the band sup­ports. Chris also has a day job, as the South­ern Cal­i­for­nia ter­ri­tory man­ager for a global archi­tec­tural com­pany called Forms+Surfaces. He has been work­ing in that indus­try for many years help­ing to sup­ply and cus­tomize mate­ri­als for numer­ous high pro­file archi­tec­tural projects such as Dis­ney Hall and the upcom­ing LA LIVE project in down­town Los Ange­les. Chris lives in Bur­bank Cal­i­for­nia with his lovely wife Jackie and their two beau­ti­ful daugh­ters Saman­tha and Abi­gail, (care­ful, he also has a black belt, not in Karate, but it could whip you real hard). He is also an avid golfer and loves all forms of watersports.

Barry Sarna (Keyboard)

Barry Sarna has two great jobs. He has been musi­cian since he was 18 and a teacher for the past 10 years. He played with Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh from the Eagles and worked with Janet Jack­son and wrote music for her and other well know artists. Barry played on many albums in the 80’s includ­ing Sha­la­mar, The Whis­pers, Janet Jack­son, Jody Wat­ley, and worked with well known rock­ers such as Bon­nie Bramm­let and Andy Fraser from Free. And he has toured all over the world. Now Barry has a new love! He is a Social Stud­ies teacher with a mas­ters in edu­ca­tion and also a men­tor teacher. Can you believe it! Most recently he very hap­pily is play­ing again with this great bunch of guys and some of his best friends from his home town of Bur­bank in “Band From TV”. The band plays to raise money for char­ity and we get to have big fun. (Who says you’re too old too rock!).

Jon Sarna (Drums-Percussion)

Jon Sarna is thrilled to have the oppor­tu­nity to be play­ing with Band From TV. He is a recent grad­u­ate of Berklee Col­lege of Music in Boston, MA where he stud­ied drums and per­cus­sion and received a BA in Pro­fes­sional Music. He has also played with his own band “The Love­bucket” and is cur­rently play­ing with “The Mag­nif­i­cent Amber­sons” who have got­ten to play on such stages as the Par­adise rock club in Boston, MA and the Trou­ba­dour in Hol­ly­wood, CA. Jon would like to thank Greg for afford­ing him the chance to not only play along­side great peo­ple, but to be a part of some­thing that is giv­ing back to a lot impor­tant causes.

Brad Sav­age (Bass– Vocals)

Some may remem­ber Brad Sav­age as a child actor. He was in sev­eral Dis­ney movies, “The Apple Dumpling Gang”, “No Deposit, No Return”, etc… as well as over a hun­dred TV com­mer­cials and many stage pro­duc­tions. He also played Tony Randall’s son on “The Tony Ran­dall Show for two seasons…Brads last film was “Red Dawn” in the mid 80’s. Dur­ing his col­lege years and beyond, began the Band Years. He sang lead for “Facion Risque”, then later played bass and sang in “Big Boy Combo” (with Greg Grun­berg on Drums). Greg and Brad have been play­ing together in one form or another ever sense. He later got into post pro­duc­tion and film edit­ing, all the while con­tin­u­ing to do voice over work. For the past 15 years or so, Brad has been work­ing in Motion Pic­ture Adver­tis­ing as an Edi­tor, Writer, and now a Pro­ducer. Music has always been an impor­tant part of his life. Brad has been mar­ried to the same amaz­ing woman, (Bron­wen) for over 20 years and they have 2 excep­tional chil­dren, (Keaton, 17 and Trevyn, 13), who are both active in the music pro­grams at their respec­tive schools.

Chris­ti­aan Mostert (Sax)

West coast sax player/composer Chris­ti­aan Mostert, mem­ber of the tour­ing bands of the Eagles, Glen Frey, and Don Hen­ley, steps out front as a leader for his first solo CD, “Mid­nite Breeze” for Rhom­bus Records.

Chris­ti­aan has per­formed or recorded with: The Joe Walsh Band, Peter Cetera, Smokey Robin­son, Dr. John, Ray Charles, Michael Bolton, Greg All­man and Bruce Willis, to name a few, as well as numer­ous TV com­mer­cials and sound­tracks. “Mid­nite Breeze” is Christiaan’s first solo effort into Jazz, Smooth Jazz, and R&B Instru­men­tals. This all-original set of tunes fea­tures some of the best musi­cians in L.A. includ­ing gui­tarist Jeff (Skunk) Bax­ter, organ­ist Mike Finni­gan, drum­mers Rick Marotta and Burleigh Drum­mond, per­cus­sion­ist Michito Sanchez, along with addi­tional drum and per­cus­sion tracks on “On The Street” and “Tease”, cour­tesy of Steve Gadd. “Mid­nite Breeze” is radio-friendly and com­ing to a radio sta­tion near you.

Chris­ti­aan has per­formed and/or recorded with:

  • Bruce Cock­burn
  • Bruce Willis
  • Chaka Khan
  • Christo­pher Cross
  • Deb­bie Gibson
  • Don Hen­ley
  • Dr John
  • Eagles
  • For­eigner
  • Fred Willard
  • Glenn Frey
  • Greg All­man
  • Hank Bal­lard
  • Heaters
  • Joe Cocker
  • Joe Walsch
  • John May­all
  • John Stew­art
  • Jose Luis Rodriguez(El Puma)
  • Maria Con­chita Alonso
  • Michael Bolton
  • Peter Cetera
  • Pointer Sis­ters
  • Ray Charles
  • Rus­sell Hitch­cock (Air Supply)
  • Smokey Robin­son
  • Sylvester & the Hot Band
Meet the Band

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T.H.E. Big Event — Las Virgenes School Fundraiser Brings in $400K

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By Kyle Jor­rey, TheAcorn.com

STARS COME OUT—Greg Grun­berg of the Band from TV ser­e­nades actress Jen­nifer Love Hewitt dur­ing last weekend’s THE (Together Help­ing Edu­ca­tion) Event fundraiser in Cal­abasas. Photo: RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

Declar­ing it a wind­fall for the stu­dents and teach­ers of the Las Vir­genes Uni­fied School Dis­trict, the orga­niz­ers of last Saturday’s gala dubbed THE Event are say­ing the $150-aticket party in Cal­abasas raised more than $400,000.

“We were hop­ing among our­selves to make $100,000, $150,000, we thought that was pretty aggres­sive,” said Jes­sica Pinto Nedick, co-chair of THE Event. “So when the total num­bers came back, we were just blown away.”

The celebrity-laden evening soiree at the Cal­abasas Ten­nis and Swim Cen­ter was the inau­gural fundrais­ing gala for Together Help­ing Edu­ca­tion, a foun­da­tion started in Decem­ber 2010 by a group of com­mu­nity mem­bers con­cerned about statewide cuts to pub­lic education.

Pinto Nedick, who co-chaired the event along­side Marc Her­nan­dez and Deanna Glass­berg, said the non­profit group saw the evening as an oppor­tu­nity to raise aware­ness about the foun­da­tion and to raise the alarm about the fund­ing plight of local schools. But it turned out to be much more.

T.H.E. Event - Chris Harrison & Greg Grunberg

CELEBS—Chris Har­ri­son, host of TV’s “The Bach­e­lor,” and Greg Grun­berg, actor and founder of Band from TV, enter­tain the crowd at THE Event at Cal­abasas Ten­nis and Swim Cen­ter last Sat­ur­day. Har­ri­son and Grun­berg both have chil­dren in LVUSD schools. Photo: RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

It really showed what this com­mu­nity is capa­ble of doing when given the oppor­tu­nity to unite …” Pinto Nedick said.

Greeted by balmy weather and the oppor­tu­nity to taste fine wines and sam­ple some of the area’s high-end restaurants—Maestro’s and Fleming’s steak houses among them—more than 1,000 guests filled the out­door venue to near capac­ity. And when time came for the live auc­tion, the crowd of LVUSD par­ents and sup­port­ers didn’t keep their hands stuck in their pockets.

With Chris Harrison—host of TV’s “The Bach­e­lor” and “The Bach­e­lorette” and par­ent of a child at White Oak Ele­men­tary in West­lake Village—lending his ser­vices as mas­ter of cer­e­monies, and pro­fes­sional auc­tion­eer Jeff Tanen­baum han­dling the bid­ders, the live auc­tion raised approx­i­mately $160,000, includ­ing $85,000 dur­ing the auction’s “Raise Your Pad­dle” portion.

“I was cry­ing,” Pinto Nedick said. “We were hop­ing to have a few peo­ple raise those pad­dles— this is lit­er­ally just peo­ple giv­ing money, they get noth­ing in return. Our esti­mate was $20,000 or $30,000, and we raised $85,000 in 10 minutes.”

Asked how THE Event was able to be suc­cess­ful when so many non­prof­its are strug­gling, Pinto Nedick cred­ited the foundation’s exec­u­tive board mem­bers with com­ing up with a fundraiser that really fit the community—then call­ing every num­ber in their Rolodex to drum up sup­port for it.

“We really reached out to our rela­tion­ships and our con­nec­tions and cre­ated what we thought would be an incred­i­ble coming-out party, and all of it is to ben­e­fit teach­ers and coun­selors,” she said.

No con­nec­tion was more impor­tant than the one forged between foun­da­tion pres­i­dent Her­nan­dez, and Greg Grun­berg, whose chil­dren are in the same class at Round Meadow Ele­men­tary School in Calabasas.

T.H.E. Event - Parents Bidding

Par­ents bid at the auc­tion. Pho­tos by RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

Grun­berg, a famil­iar face to TV view­ers from his roles on NBC’s “Heroes” and more recently on Lifetime’s “The Client List,” also hap­pens to be the par­ent of three boys at three dif­fer­ent schools in the school dis­trict. His old­est, 16-yearold Jake, goes to Agoura High School; Ben, 12, is at A.E. Wright Mid­dle School and youngest Sam, 8, is at Round Meadow Elementary.

When Her­nan­dez, part-owner of Brent Deli’s in West­lake Vil­lage, approached Grun­berg about help­ing with the event, both he and wife Elizabeth—who were later named hon­orary co-chairs—jumped in full force, Pinto Nedick said.

“They are an incred­i­ble cou­ple,” she said of the Grunbergs.

Greg Grun­berg not only offered to invite all his celebrity friends, but he offered to let his band, Band from TV—a group com­pris­ing actors from pop­u­lar shows like “Lost” and “Des­per­ate House­wives”— play for free.

“It was such a smart thing (for the foun­da­tion) to do, to give a very direct invi­ta­tion to these par­ents who want to do some­thing, who want to help out the schools, ‘Hey, come have a party,’” said Grun­berg, who has his own foun­da­tion ded­i­cated to rais­ing aware­ness about epilep­tic seizures.

Dur­ing its hour-long per­for­mance Sat­ur­day night, the band wel­comed spe­cial cameos by come­dian Wayne Brady and actress Jen­nifer Love Hewitt, both friends of Grun­berg. Also seen at the event: boxer Aud­ley Har­ri­son, a mem­ber of THE, and Back­street Boys band mem­ber Kevin Richardson.

“This school dis­trict was so ripe and ready for some­thing well orga­nized and put together,” Grun­berg said. “(The credit) goes directly to Marc, Jes­sica and Deanna (Glass­berg), they put in so much hard work and it showed. It was just flawless.”

Pinto Nedick said the best thing about last Saturday’s event wasn’t the great food, wine or music—it was that audi­ence mem­bers bought into the foundation’s message.

“Our mes­sage was very clear: We have the con­trol. We can make what hap­pens in Sacra­mento irrel­e­vant to our children’s edu­ca­tion, that was our mes­sage, and that res­onated. Peo­ple got it.”

Source: The Acorn Press
http://www.theacorn.com/news/2012–06-14/Front_Page/THE_Big_Event.html

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