Meet the Musician

Senior Chief Musician Peter A. Czekaj,

Audio/Visual Engineer

Senior Chief Musician Peter Czekaj, a native of Buffalo, N.Y., joined the Navy Band in 1999.  He earned a Bachelor of Music in trumpet performance, from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1988.  His teachers included Brian Lewis, Wayne Linehan and David Kuehn. Czekaj enlisted in the Navy in 1990 as a trumpet instrumentalist and was stationed at Sixth Fleet Band in Naples, Italy.  After this first tour he transferred to Navy Band San Francisco, then Navy Band Southwest in San Diego, Calif.  As a self-taught audio engineer, he worked at local nightclubs in the San Francisco Bay area including Slims and The Berkley Square where he worked with Pearl Jam, Green Day, No Doubt, 311, Weezer and other alternative rock bands.  In 1996, he was instrumental in starting the first audio engineer training class for fleet bands.  In 1998, Czekaj was appointed to the Navy Band, and reported in 1999 as an audio engineer for the newly formed Cruisers.  Currently the unit leader for the audio/visual specialty unit and recording archivist, he is in the process of digitizing the entire analog tape history of the Navy Band.