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North Salem Resident And Musician Shoots The Moon

NORTH SALEM, N.Y. – North Salem’s Robbie Kondor was driving home from a party Saturday night when someone said, “Tonight is that ‘supermoon’ thing.” A supermoon appears annually on the day when the moon is closest to the earth. Next year it will occur in August.

North Salem's Robbie Kondor photographed the supermoon Saturday night.

North Salem's Robbie Kondor photographed the supermoon Saturday night.

Photo Credit: Robbie Kondor
Robbie Kondor captured the  supermoon in this photograph Saturday night.

Robbie Kondor captured the supermoon in this photograph Saturday night.

Photo Credit: Robbie Kondor

The night was clear and the supermoon was indeed bright and full, so when Kondor got home, he attached his telescope to his SLR camera and took a few shots. When he saw his casually shot moon photos, Kondor said, “I was shocked.”

“I’m not a photographer,” he explained, “I’m just an occasional sky-gazer, bird-looker and picture-taker.”

Kondor also happens to be a full-time musician, specializing in piano and keyboard. He has provided accompaniment for Barbra Streisand, Billy Joel, Bonnie Raitt, Elmer Bernstein, James Galway, Marvin Hamlisch and scores of other pop and classical stars. For the hipper set, he can mention 50-Cent, Meat Loaf, Queen Latifah, Smashing Pumpkins and on and on and on.

In between, he composes and arranges music for film, television and commercials. Examples include HBO, Doritos, Adidas, Pepsi, MetLife, Visa and Wendy's. If you are a night owl, you may have viewed some of his frequent appearances with North Salem’s David Letterman.

Kondor’s musical career got started after his high school graduation when he and a couple of friends headed south to perform at the North Carolina Bluegrass Festival and Ole Time Fiddler’s Contest. His instrument of choice was a violin, or in bluegrass parlance, a fiddle. The New Yorkers finished 148 out of 151.

The message was clear: stick to the piano. While studying for a degree at the Manhattan School of Music, Kondor earned pin money by working as a studio musician. That was when he learned to master the synthesizer. He is pretty good on a harmonica, too, not bad on the mandolin and can carry his own on an accordion.

Kondor and his family have lived in Westchester on and off since 1991. After four years in Los Angeles, they settled in North Salem about a year ago. It seems it might be the perfect location to shoot for the moon.

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