About Alexander “Sasha” Ishov
Singularly devoted to both challenging and advancing flute repertoire, Alexander “Sasha” Ishov is an innovative flutist specializing in 20th and 21st century music. Praised by The San Diego Union-Tribune for his “well-sounded and lucid” artistry, his artistic breadth spans from traditional and contemporary chamber repertoire, to experimental electroacoustic projects pushing the boundaries of modern audio technology.
Central to Alexander/Sasha’s artistic ethos is a commitment to redefining audience expectations surrounding flute repertoire, cultivating a demographically and musically-diverse repertoire. Sasha’s contributions to flute performance are grounded in two major axes: the co-creation of new acoustic and electroacoustic works, and the showcasing of existing repertoire that challenges perceptions of the historical canon.
Fiercely dedicated to chamber music, Alexander performs with offscreen, a duo with percussionist Michael Jones exploring the intersections of traditional instruments and technology. Together with soprano Stefanie Quentin, Alexander has recorded the premiere of Grete von Zieritz’s Stimmen im Walde (1993), included on an upcoming chamber music album. Recent projects include a performance of Morton Feldman’s 240-minute long For Philip Guston (1984) with Steven Schick and Liam Wooding, a multichannel experimental audio installation presented at the Qualcomm Institute, and a self-released 2021 album of Feldman’s Crippled Symmetry (1983) with Ashley Zhang and Michael Jones. As a skilled multi-flutist, his piccolo playing can be heard on The Torres Cycle by Wilfrido Terrazas, featured on Bandcamp’s “Best Contemporary Classical” list.
Sasha holds the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble flute fellowship position and has been featured at venues including Carnegie Hall; BBC Proms; Ojai Music Festival; June in Buffalo; soundSCAPE; Neofonía–Festival de Música Nueva de Ensenada; MOXsonic; SPLICE Institute; Transplanted Roots Percussion Festival, collaborating with contemporary and classical artists including John Adams; John Luther Adams; Irvine Arditti; Miranda Cuckson; Renée Fleming; Karen Gomyo; JACK Quartet; Brad Lubman; Anthony McGill; Ensemble Signal; Steven Schick; Augusta Read Thomas; Wilfrido Terrazas; Pamela Z, among others.
As a Doctor of Musical Arts Candidate in Contemporary Music Performance at the University of California San Diego, Sasha invests into cultivating lasting partnerships with composers. As a committed researcher, he writes about the processes that mediate performer-composer communication, applying research to practice by championing collaborative models that push against traditional power structures of music institutions. His practice engages with issues of design in the practice room, classroom, and the concert hall.
As an Associate Instructor of Music Theory and Musicianship at the University of California San Diego, Alexander integrates the latest music technology into his pedagogy. Through tools like collaborative DAWs, interactive textbooks, and low-latency audio streaming software, his courses apply technology in a thoughtful way to enable more informative, accessible, dynamic, and fun learning environments. This enables Alexander’s pedagogy to serve the needs of the 21st-century music department, as it adapts to post-pandemic student expectations of flexible modalities and student-centered course design.
Together with Theocharis Papatrechas, Sasha is the co-creator of PrismaSonus, a creative audio research database exploring how microphone placement affects the perception of flute technique, highlighting timbres and microtechniques that are otherwise hidden to performers and listeners. The project explores how recording technology mediates communication between performers and composers, as well as the relationship between technique, notation, and listening in electroacoustic collaborations. This research is being directly applied to musical performances, including Morphés, a fixed-media immersive sound installation for 20 channels, as well as Morphés II, a live performance version for live performer, live spatialization, and pre-recorded media. Their work has been featured at Calit2’s Qualcomm Institute, Harvard University, and the Missouri Experimental Sonic Arts Festival.
Alexander holds degrees from UC San Diego, Eastman School of Music, and Interlochen Arts Academy, and is a Miyazawa Emerging Artist, performing on Miyazawa, Powell, Altus, and Di Zhao flutes. Primary flute mentors include Wilfrido Terrazas, Bonita Boyd, Anne Lindblom Harrow, Nancy Stagnitta, Dr. Kristen Stoner, and Christine Alicot.
