AJ Gundell

Adjunct Instructor of Music
Songwriting

Andy “A.J.” Gundell is a 13-time Emmy award-winning songwriter, composer, music supervisor/director/producer, audio post-production supervisor… and currently the founder and CEO of One-Stop Music Shop and its next gen music library, Future Hits.

Best move Andy ever made was setting aside a degree in philosophy from Yale in favor of starting a bluegrass-rockband called The Helium Brothers. A decade or a few later… too many gigs to remember… but some with unforgettable artists, creatives, and media partners… he’s still proudest to say he’s been a professional musician for his entire career.

What followed was 25 years as a music supervisor/director/composer for classic network shows like “All My Children,” “Guiding Light” and others. The daily trenches of TV production led to incredible creative opportunities to compose, write songs, score, edit, direct, and post-mix for the programs, which in turn led to 13 Emmys: an unsurpassed three for Outstanding Original Song, A.J. the vocalist for two; for his original scores as a composer and his work as a music director/supervisor in the categories of Music Direction, Composition, and Arrangement; and for his audio-post soundtrack mixing, sound design and production. In addition to wide-ranging drama and sitcom, some of Andy’s favorite clips from his composer’s commercial reel include high intensity sports music: the two original show themes that launched the first years of NBA-TV; ESPN’s main title for the PBA Pro Bowlers Tour; and the show theme for NBC Sports Network’s mixed martial arts show, World Series of Fighting.

Andy’s career as a performing and recorded singer-songwriter continued and still does. His recordings have been released on major label PolyGram Records as a compilation of his greatest TV hits called “Love On The Air”; as a songbook/CD of the same name by Cherry Lane Music; and as the indie album “Collection,” for which the late great rock DJ Pete Fornatale referred to Andy as “a hidden treasure.” Iconic artists as diverse as Nashville legend Don
Williams and South African Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have recorded Andy’s music.

In recent years Andy created and operates the One-Stop Music Shop, Inc: recording/instruction/licensing. One-Stop is a diverse and integrated set of professional music products and services: DAW recording, production and postaudio; songwriting, composing, personal song management and exploitation; instruction; and music publishing, supervision and licensing. In addition to individual lessons in guitar/voice/ProTools and music business coaching, Andy has brought his songwriting instruction skills and credentials to a number of professional workshops—Write Yourself Free, Fairfield County Writer’s Studio, and most recently the historic Ridgefield Playhouse. On the licensing front, A.J. is the creator/owner/publisher of his music library Future Hits—a world-class collection of indie music for license to the visual media. A.J.’s libraries and personal catalog have garnered over a thousand placements in film, television, advertising and Internet—with such diverse licensees as ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox, ESPN, Warner Bros. Discovery, MTV, Netflix, Nike, E!, NBA-TV, HBO, Disney, Kmart, Sony, A T & T, and many more.

Everyday Andy wakes up believing the next future hit is out there, waiting to be written. He thinks maybe he’s got it. And maybe one of his Future Hits writers does. Or, as his student this semester at WCSU, maybe you do too.