Joel Pelletier is an independent musician, composer and multimedia artist living in Los Angeles, CA. His songwriting is influenced by both classical and pop music, while his lyrics combine the personal with social and ethical topics. His painting and illustration style is a kind of "surrealistic cartooning."

Raised in Massachusetts, he received a degree in Music Composition from The Hartt School of Music at The University of Hartford , while also studying at the Hartford Art School and playing in rock bands at night. In Los Angeles since 1988, he has been a vocalist, bassist, guitarist, keyboardist/pianist, Chapman Stick player, composer, arranger and musical director for many bands and ensembles, including his own. He is also active as a "sideline musician," appearing in films and TV shows including Jim Carey's "The Man In The Moon", Star Trek Voyager, VH1's Meatloaf Bio, Family Matters, Celine Dion Special (CBS), INK, Fame LA, Murphy Brown and Columbo.

Joel performs either with a string quartet or with his 7-piece Chamber Pop Ensemble, with guitar, bass, drums, a string section and the 3-part harmonies featured throught his pop music, both in Southern California and (in June 2003) London, UK. He is currently working on a staged version of his music and ideas about art, entitled The Work, including music, actor sketches, monolouges and multimedia presentations. 2001 also marked a return to his classical piano and composition roots, with planned solo and chamber music recitals of masters including Alban Berg, Bela Bartok, Paul Hindemith, Schubert and Beethoven, a film script about a classical solo pianist coming out of retirement, and initial planning of an opera based on the events of 9/11.

His background as a composer/musician, artist and computer graphic artist/designer come together in the production of his CD/CD-ROM, "CHAMBER POP ," featuring 12 songs plus videos, lyrics in 10 languages, animations, etc., and the entire album is available for free MP3 download from his website, http://www.joelp.com (go to Music for all the downloads).

As the line between business and art continues to blur, Joel feels that independence from market influences are essential for the survival of culture and the arts. Through his web, design and multimedia company The Way Home Media, Joel has created and designed professional commercial websites, illustrations and advertising campaigns and materials for dozens of large and small commercial clients, and this work continues to finance his art, music and music company, The Way Home Music. For 2 years Joel was "Cyber Music" columnist and webmaster for Music Connection Magazine, LA's oldest and most respected professional music publication, and he has also contributed columns and illustrations to Electronic Musician. He has moderated panels on music and the Internet at MUSICOM, and was featured on The CBS News in a story about music, the Internet and MPEG3. For performance, interview and/or panel bookings he can be reached by email at joelp@joelp.com, or by phone at 818-373-7511.

(updated 29 January 2002)

Ready to beam me up? On 3 March 1999 UPN aired an episode of Star Trek: Voyager entitled "Course: Oblivion," in which the entire crew melts away, illustrating the futility of life and mortality (well, that's one way to look at it...). I was playing my 24th century upright bass (actually my Quintas composite bass) in a wedding scene (yes, I play a human Voyager crew member). A trekkie back when they were still called that, I can now die knowing that I have achieved a small bit of future syndicated immortality.

Alias (aired 4/7/02)
On February 27th, 2002, I spent the day on the set of the TV show ALIAS, appearing as a glorified extra in a formal costume party scene. As a member of a string quartet from circa 1760 (I'm the third guy from the left, NOT contemplating a major lifestyle change, and on the far left is Eric Gorfain, who played violin on my CHAMBER POP CD), and it was good to spend a day with him, three local real string players and myself (I only play one on TV...) were costumed, wigged and powdered just like musicians from around that time (or close enough anyway). Back then musicians were just another servant in a nobleman's stable, were required to wear the house uniform at all times, shup up and play for their betters. We did the same, albiet pretending to play some 19th century Vienese waltz, while looking at (18th centuery) Mozart on the music stands.

In an effort to prove that only musicias look real pretending to play, I suggested we all do a synchronized page turn on a pre-arranged cue, but it would probably be cut out anyway, so we had another donut and waited to be released from the set.

The third photo is wrong for so many reasons... Never mind the 17th century outfit with the cell phone - I particularly enjoy my fellow musician behind meditating on his Krispy Kreme.