Biography

Isaac Io Schankler is a composer, accordionist, and electronic musician living in Los Angeles. Their music has been described as “powerful” (Sequenza21), “delightful” (I Care If You Listen), “ingenious” (The Artificialist), “masterfully composed” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), and “the antidote to sentimentality” (LA Times).

Schankler’s performances and commissions include works for the Nouveau Classical Project, the Ray-Kallay Duo, Friction Quartet, gnarwhallaby, the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, Lorelei Ensemble, Juventas New Music Ensemble, flutist Meerenai Shim, and bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood. Recent honors include awards and grants from Meet the Composer, the National Opera Association, the American Composers Forum, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the American Prize. Schankler is a past winner of the USC Sadye J. Moss Composition Prize and the ASCAP/Lotte Lehmann Foundation Art Song Competition.

As a composer for video games, Schankler has written music for critically acclaimed and award-winning independent games, including Ladykiller in a BindAnalogue: A Hate Story, Hate PlusRedshirt, and Depression Quest.

As a writer and researcher, Schankler has written numerous articles for NewMusicBox, the multimedia publication of New Music USA, and in 2013 was a winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence in music journalism. Their writing has also appeared in the International Journal of Arts and Technology, Computer Music Journal, and the proceedings of various international conferences.

Schankler is the artistic director of the concert series People Inside Electronics, and holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition from the University of Southern California, as well as Master of Music and Bachelor of Music degrees in composition from the University of Michigan. Schankler is currently Associate Professor of Music at Cal Poly Pomona, where they teach composition, music technology, and music theory.

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