Steve Lewandowski has over forty years experience as a musician, educator, and composer. He has been on the “jazz scene” since the mid 1970”s, most notably with the group “OPUS”, but also with many other groups, his own, and solo. He has backed musicians in concert such as Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Pat Metheny, Gary Burton and many others. He is on call and has worked with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Racine Symphony, and the Sheboygan Symphony. As a theater musician he has worked with many touring Broadway shows including “Lion King”, “Legally Blonde”, “Grease”, “Spamalot”, “Newsies”, and others.

As an educator he taught band, orchestra, choral, general music, and jazz guitar for the Milwaukee Archdiocese, and also for Milwaukee Public schools. While teaching at Milwaukee H.S. of the Arts his Jazz Guitar Ensemble won second place in the Jazz Combo category at the Berklee National Jazz Competition, Boston, MA, (2000). The Jazz Guitar Ensemble also won Star 1 awards from WSMA several years in a row (1999-2001).

He has written works for small and large ensemble garnering international airplay for “Dancing Fantasy”, OPUS, 1980, “Familiar Melodies”, a solo album for jazz quintet, 2010, and “Definition”, OPUS, 2015. He premiered his orchestral jazz work, “Trinity”, with the Racine Symphony Orchestra in 2013, and has compositions which are featured on other solo artist’s albums – Kaye Berigan, “From The Curve”, Paul Spencer, “Level Groove, (The Music of Steve Lewandowski)”, Ellen Winters, “Secret Of Life”, and “Jocko (The Monkey)” on The Milwaukee Jazz Orchestra CD, “Welcome To Swingsville”, 2017.

One of Steve’s continuing passions is to engage in outreach with upcoming student musicians, helping them to tap into improvisation and developing their own inner voice.