Arthur T. Bevilaqua was born into the world-renown trapeze act family, The Soaring Bevilaquas in 1957 to mother Constance and father George. His place of birth according to his parents was "somewhere in the midwest" due to the travelling nature of the circus they were then performing with. The Soaring Bevilaquas had been thrilling audiences for generations since the turn of the 20th century in some of the most reputable circuses and carnivals in the USA.
As Art grew up learning to be an integral part of the family performance, he was also discovering music by sitting in with the circus and carnival bands he travelled with. A natural musician with superb brain-to-hand coordination, he picked up and soon mastered the trumpet and piano. By the age of 16, he knew that his path forward lay in music, not in being a circus performer.
So when Simon Starr's Carnival of Delights and Oddities hit Sacramento in late 1976, Art jumped ship. Taking odd jobs as he went, he slowly, over a period of months, hitch-hiked his way south to Los Angeles where a ride dropped him off right in front of legendary LA punk dive The Masque, just off Hollywood Blvd. In that sleazy basement room, Art's musical horizons would be significantly broadened. For a few months, Art slept on the floors of various new friends' rooms at the Canterbury Apartments, a refuge for the young misfits and oddballs of Hollywood.
While attempting to form a punk band with several other residents without having any instruments or money, Art came upon an ad for The Thurston Spilk Conservatory of Music in London. TSCM was holding auditions in Los Angeles and the top performers would be eligible for a two-year course scholarship at the conservatory. Being broke and directionless, Art decided to audition. Due to his natural musicianship and aptitude on the trumpet, Art managed to ace the audition and win a scholarship. So off to England he went.
At the conservatory, he would meet his lifelong friend and collaborator, multi-instrumentalist and composer, Alice Lessing, with whom he briefly formed a punk rock band called Dead Betty, whose greatest claim to fame was opening for The Slits at a birthday party in 1978, before splitting up the following week.
Having not completed his course, but not feeling the need to continue studying music, Art returned to Los Angeles and formed the infamous psychedelic punk outfit, The Delicious Bottom Fuckers, with future Sublamental founder Todd Brunner in 1979. The band lasted nearly two years until drummer Ford Fiesta was stabbed to death in a fight with the guitarist (name forgotten) of The Screamin' Chilli Bitch Tits From Valhalla. Having lost a member in this tragic and shocking way, the band had no will to continue. Aimless and dejected, Art took part in some improvisational experimental music sessions in Santa Monica with the people who would eventually become known as Dudes on Drugs. Also taking part in these sessions was a soon-to-be-famous film director who took a liking to Art and they struck up a friendship.
This friendship would lead Arthur into the world of film composing, and although he never scored any of the now-becoming-famous film director's movies, the connection got him jobs on a handful of low-budget stinkers too insignificant or too bad to mention here.
In 1990 he returned to England and slept on Alice Lessing's sofa in Acton for six months before meeting his future wife Isobel Finch and moving into her posh flat in Richmond. During this time Art became sound designer and composer for pioneering interactive media company Segara, a job that provided him with connections into the fledgling computer games industry. When Segara imploded in the late 90s, Art leveraged his connections in both tech and film to become one of the busiest freelance composers in London.
From 1997 to 2010 he scored 8 films and 11 games, including Flak 1, 2 and 3 from Zendar Games, Heiropheasant, Reason to Deceive and Bulb from filmmaker Carlos Vega, and the Cranial trilogy from Vortexed.
In 2010 Art and Isobel divorced and, on the encouragement of Todd Brunner (who had immigrated to England shortly after Art did), Art moved to Lushwood Hills where a soon-to-be vibrant music scene was getting off the ground.
Today Art sits on the Lushwood Hills Entertainment Committee and personally books the Stonewell and Gormenghast theatres. He has scored many of the films coming out of the Institute for Science, Art and Vocational Arts, where he is also an advisor and teacher in the music school. He collaborates frequently with other Lushwood Hills musicians and artists, including his old pal Alice Lessing, who is also a local resident.