Exceptional Musician Andy Bumatay

From Grape Picker to Picking Notes: Musician Andy Bumatay
By C. MacDonald

During the 1960s, Andy Bumatay picked grapes in the San Joaquin Valley fields near Delano, where he grew up. "It really motivated me," said the man of Filipino ancestry, who has developed into a fantastic entertainer. "While picking grapes, I'd be thinking, ‘I want to get out of here, get an education, become a musician and go as far as I can go.'"

Now, 50 years later, he's still picking, not grapes but notes, as a String Bass Player with one of the World's most prestigious orchestras, The Pacific Symphony in Orange County, Ca. He still uses his strong, flexible hands to help create some of the most beautiful music ever heard.

Andy's passion has always been music and he had the natural talent and got the education to develop it into a profession, even though his father advised him "to forget it and go into business."

He has come a long way from the fields, thanks to his encouraging mother, who was a piano player; an older sister, who was a concert pianist; another, a band conductor; yet another, a piano player, and his brother, a tenor sax musician for the popular valley rock band, "The Rhythm Kings." (Even his retired school teacher wife, Lynn, played trumpet.) You might say Andy had (and has) the music in and around him.

Ironically, he chose String Bass because "it was something no one else in my family played," said the Huntington Beach resident, who first learned about it in a "Beginning Strings" class at Delano Union High School in 1957.

Upon graduation, as he developed his musical skills, Andy still picked grapes when he could. He went to Bakersfield Junior College, then on to UCLA, where he earned a degree in music (1968), and received his Teaching Credential from Cal State Northridge.

While still in college, Andy's smooth ability stood out and he won a scholarship to the famous "Congress of Strings" at Michigan State.

He interned at Los Angeles City Schools, taught at San Fernando High and other institutions. From 1977-1981, Andy was Orchestra Director at Pasadena High and John Muir High. From 1981 until his retirement in 2005, he taught music in the Garden Grove Unified School District.

For the past 30 years, Andy has played his bass in the prestigious Pacific Symphony. "I'm a small part of a big orchestra of really talented musicians," said the humble entertainer. "It's a joy just helping them create beautiful sounds."

Watching Andy and his incredible peers perform flawlessly with the great Duke Ellington Orchestra recently in the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall is a memorable experience. The last number was the classic, "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)." Andy and the other pros definitely "got the swing," and thanks to Conductor Carl St. Clair's direction, "it's a thing" we'll never forget!

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