AMY SANCHEZ

Amy Sanchez maintains a diverse career as a full-time freelance musician in Los Angeles.

She was appointed Lecturer of Horn at UCLA in 2014 and takes pride in fostering a supportive horn community and alumni network.

In addition to performing frequently with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Pacific Symphony, recent career highlights include repeat performances with the Chicago Symphony for the past several seasons, and a performance with the Vienna Philharmonic in 2023. Amy often serves as Principal Horn of the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico since its inception in 2016, and as Principal Horn of the Juneau Symphony often since 2021. She joins the Sitka Holiday Brass yearly in December and the Strings Festival Orchestra and Brass Ensemble in Steamboat Springs, Colorado many summers. Amy is also 2nd Horn with the Fresno Philharmonic and Riverside Philharmonic and has performed with most of the major regional orchestras throughout California.

An active studio musician, Amy can be heard on prominent film scores, including Inside Out 2, Avatar 2, Frozen 2, Lightyear, Incredibles 2, Coco, Star Wars: Rogue One, Moana, Star Trek Beyond, and Jurassic World. She has also recorded with artists as diverse as Kendrick Lamar, Dave Matthews Band, Kamasi Washington, Dr. Dre, Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Lopez, Idina Menzel, Michael Bublé, and Florence and the Machine, among others. Her on-screen recording credits include the recent film Behemoth, Carrie Underwood’s holiday special My Gift, American Idol, and The Voice. Amy’s brass trio, 3Brass, released its second album, Christmas at Home, in 2020. She can also be heard with LA’s Grammy-nominated modern music collective Wild Up on its 2023 release, The Music of Julius Eastman, Vol. 3. In 2022, Amy had the honor of performing on a documentary about Henry Mancini alongside John Williams, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Vinnie Colaiuta, and Arturo Sandoval.

Amy performs live across a variety of genres and has appeared at Coachella, the Hollywood Bowl, and the Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, and Game Awards with artists including Labrinth, Zendaya, Billie Eilish, Sia, Hozier, Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, Ariana Grande, Dave Matthews Band, Common, Kamasi Washington, and Andrea Bocelli. She is equally comfortable in jazz, Latin, rock, hip-hop, and other styles, performing and recording with Vardan Ovsepian’s Chamber Ensemble (VOCE), Miguel Atwood-Ferguson’s Suite for Ma Dukes, Marcel Camargo’s The Brazil You Never Heard, and the DaKah Hip Hop Orchestra. In February 2027, Amy will perform the complete Birth of the Cool album by Miles Davis with an ensemble led by drummer Brian Blade at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

A lover of travel, Amy has toured with the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Pacific Symphony, and had the special opportunity to perform with the Vienna Philharmonic in 2023. She frequently travels to perform with orchestras from Hawaii to Alaska, and played 2nd Horn with the Pageant of the Masters Orchestra in Laguna Beach for five summer seasons. Early in her performance career, Amy was the horn soloist on the first national tour of the Broadway show Blast!, performing throughout the United States, Canada, and Japan. Other international performances have taken her to India, Israel, China, South Africa, and throughout Europe.

Prior to her career at UCLA, Amy taught horn with YOLA/Harmony Project, worked as a teaching artist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, served as sabbatical Horn Professor at Ithaca College in New York, and taught at Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan.

Amy discovered her passion for wildlife photography and conservation while on a wildlife safari in South Africa following a performance at the Cape Town Jazz Festival in 2018. She quickly partnered with the South African nonprofit Nkombe Rhino, which promotes wildlife and wild-land conservation through tourism, organizing conservation safaris to help protect endangered species. In an effort to combine music with these interests, Amy created the brass ensemble Horns for Rhinos to raise funds and awareness and founded Nkombe Wild, a U.S.-based nonprofit, in 2021.

Amy developed a love for Alaska and aviation after a float-plane trip to photograph coastal brown bears while camping in Katmai National Park. She became a licensed private pilot in 2021 and is currently pursuing her instrument rating. Amy now makes time to work on her cabin on an island in Sitka and hopes to eventually fly floatplanes in the beautiful backcountry of Southeast Alaska.