He studied under Aram Khachaturian at the Moscow Conservatory, and has worked in a creative capacity at Oxford University and Cambridge University.
He is currently a Professor at the Latvian Academy of Music. His style has been described as "new consonant music", with an "amazingly clear positive spirit". Notable works include:
Revelation, Concerto for counter-tenor, piano, and trumpet
Nevertheless, Concerto for violin, piano, and strings
Buena-Riga
The Last Song
Flowering Jasmine, Concerto for violin, vibraphone, and strings
Jack and the Beanstalk, Music for the Roald Dahl fable for symphony orchestra and narrators
Concertino bianco for piano and chamber orchestra
Pelēcis" musicological work focuses on musical form in work from the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque eras.
He has written theses focusing on the work of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Johannes Ockeghem.
Pelēcis teaches the history of theory and counterpoint at the Latvian Academy of Music, and was the first president of the Riga Center for Early Music.