A native of Long Beach, DENNIS TREMBLY learned to play the bass with the help of David Borkenhagen, John Palacios, Peter Mercurio, and Nat Gangursky. Just before his senior year in high school, Trembly studied with Stuart Sankey at the Aspen School of Music on a full scholarship, and the following three years continued this collaboration at the Juilliard School on a Naumberg scholarship. While in New York he freelanced with several orchestras, including the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Village Light Opera, American Opera Society, and the American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. Trembly joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1970 and became one of two principal bassists in the 1973/74 season.

Active as a soloist, Trembly was a semifinalist in the 1973 G. B. Dealey Competition in Dallas, and he won second prize at the 1978 International Double Bass Competition on the Isle of Man, where he performed Dittersdorf's Concerto in E major with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He has performed and taught at universities in the U.S., Mexico, and Europe, and has been featured in recital at International Society of Bassists conventions in Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Bloomington, Indianapolis, Kalamazoo, Oklahoma City, Penn State, and San Francisco.

Trembly has appeared as a soloist in Los Angeles Philharmonic Campus Concerts and Symphonies for Youth.  He also gave the world premiere of Lee Hyla's Detour Ahead, for solo bass, commissioned by the Philharmonic for the first Green Umbrella concert in the Walt Disney Concert Hall.  In 2006 he was featured as soloist on a Philharmonic subscription concert, where he performed the Concerto for Bass Viol and Orchestra, by John Harbison (former composer-in-residence), commissioned by the International Society of Bassists.  

Trembly was a faculty member at the University of Southern California Flora L. Thornton School of Music from 1981 through 2010. In addition to appearing with distinguished Philharmonic colleagues on its Chamber Music Society series, and his USC faculty colleagues, he has performed chamber music with such musicians as Menahem Pressler, Midori Goto, and Pinchas Zukerman.