From 1976 to 1979, while living in Los Angeles, Serry played piano and keyboards on motion picture and television soundtracks (e.g., The Stunt Man, Vegas).
From 1981 to 1987, still in Los Angeles, he composed soundtracks for numerous documentary and corporate films, most of them produced by Armand Hammer Productions (a division of Occidental Petroleum) and many of which received Cine Golden Eagle awards (e.g., 'From the Garden of the Middle Kingdom', 1982).
From 1983 to 1985, Serry composed the music for the Bard Productions videos of the Shakespeare plays, 'The Tempest' (starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), 'Othello' (William Marshall, Jenny Agutter) and Antony and Cleopatra (Lynn Redgrave, Timothy Dalton, Bravo Channel).
In 1988, 'Intrusions' was performed at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, by the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble with Roland Kohloff conducting.
(Saxophonist Chris Potter, who was then a high school student, participated in the festival concerts and also played in Serry's quartet.)
Members of his groups included drummers John Riley and Marvin 'Smitty' Smith, saxophonists Gerry Niewood, Ralph Bowen and Ted Nash, bassists Anthony Jackson and Tom Brigandi and percussionist Gordon Gottlieb.
He also played the piano/keyboards and percussion, in several Broadway shows (e.g., 'Saturday Night Fever', 'Cats' and 'Les Misérables') and conducted at Radio City Music Hall.
[1] In 1992, Serry played percussion on Stravinsky's 'Les noces' at Lincoln Center, conducted by Robert Craft (released on the Musicmasters CD, 'Stravinsky, the Composer', Vol.
Also while living in London, Serry played a solo and duo piano concert, in 2005, at Covent Garden (Floral Hall) with pianist Julian Joseph.
Along with these activities, Serry taught at the Royal Academy of Music (Autumn 2004) and played keyboards in the London production (2005) and UK tour (2006) of 'Saturday Night Fever'.
For part of 2006 and most of 2007, Serry was in Valencia, Spain, working on a book and playing only a few concerts (e.g., at Conservatorio de Musica Josep Climent, Oliva).
In early 2008, Serry toured the Czech Republic playing his compositions with a group of Prague musicians organized by guitarist Adam Tvrdy.
Serry has BM (with Distinction) and MM degrees from the Eastman School of Music (Professors Bill Dobbins, Chuck Mangione, John Beck, and Rayburn Wright; lessons with Marian McPartland; workshops and concerts including playing drums with Keith Jarrett and piano with Joe Farrell and Bill Watrous).
[22] Serry's third album was 'Enchantress' (1996 Telarc) about which Downbeat Magazine wrote: "He has a strong sense of melody, his touch is confident, his ideas are sensible and his playing is beautifully controlled."
and Hilary Grey wrote in JazzTimes: "Serry's fleet fingered runs on songs like the jaunty, catchy 'DYT it' are both technically impressive and subtle.