Sendrey is the son of the Hungarian-born composer, conductor and musicologist Alfred Szendrei.
[1][3] Sendrey was born into a family of musicians in Chicago in 1911 during his father's time as a theatre conductor.
The Battle of France in May and June 1940 forced the family to flee further to the United States where they changed their Hungarian surname "Szendrei" to the Americanized spelling "Sendrey".
He also wrote chamber music: two string quartets, a duo for horn and viola, a Divertimento for violoncello, a concertina for piano.
In total, Sendrey composed, arranged and orchestrated the music for about 170 film and television productions.