Ian Sankey is a musician and trombone player based in the North East of England. Ian works predominantly across the contemporary, classical, and early music scenes both at home in the UK, and throughout Europe. 

Ian runs the Newcastle based new music ensemble 55minus1, a 6-piece group made up of trombone, trumpet, sax, flute, cello and violin. They create music that crosses the pop/classical divide through exciting new commissions and collaborations with artists and performers from a wide range of backgrounds. The ensemble aims to bring innovative, virtuosic and fun music to the North East and beyond. 

Ian is the trombonist for the European ensemble S T A R G A Z E, with whom he has collaborated with pop giants including Dirty Projectors frontman David Longstreth, and electronic musician and visual artist Alva Noto. Their concerts and tours take place in concert halls throughout Europe and the UK, including in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, London’s Barbican Centre and Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw. 

Ian is also a member of contemporary pop group, the Northumberland Radical Fun Group, which has enjoyed residencies at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music and appearances at Significant Other Festival, Newcastle (2024). 

As a duo collaborator, Ian works closely with composer Joe Snape, recent recipient of a Paul Hamlyn Artist Award. The duo create new works for trombone and electronics, featuring immersive clouds of swirling trombone loops to theatrical responses to the work of the composer Luciano Berio. Ian and Joe have worked on multiple residencies together at the Glasshouse ICM and perform in both music and theatre contexts across the UK. 

Orchestrally, Ian performs regularly with Newcastle’s Royal Northern Sinfonia across many of their projects. He also works with other orchestras in the UK and Europe, including the Cologne Chamber and WDR Sinfonie Orchestras, as well as Opera North and Shadwell Opera. 

Performing beyond sit down concerts, Ian also tours Britain and Ireland with Surge Scotland’s street theatre show ‘Beautiful Bones’, an apocalyptic celebration of life and death, which features music, dance, puppetry and community participation. 

In addition to his performance work, Ian is also a specialist music mentor for Hand Of arts education charity, working with vulnerable Looked After Children not in formal education. He also teaches trombone and wider brass across a variety of community projects in the North East.