Jherek Bischoff

Jherek Bischoff
Bischoff performing with Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra at the Roxy Theater, West Hollywood, California.
Background information
Born	(1979-09-11) September 11, 1979 (age 37) Sacramento, California, U.S.
Genres	Alternative, classical music
Occupation(s)	Composer, musician, songwriter
Instruments	Bass guitar, ukulele, vocals, cello, violin, keyboards, drums, trombone, clarinet, guitar
Years active	2000–present
Labels	Brassland (US), The Leaf Label (UK)
Website	Official website

Jherek Brandon Bischoff (born September 11, 1979) is an American musician, composer, arranger, producer and songwriter, currently living in Los Angeles.

Bischoff was born in Sacramento, California. When he was a young child his parents decided they wanted to move aboard a sailboat, and eventually sailed up the coast to the Pacific Northwest. Bischoff spent his early years on the boat and when he was 14 years old, the family departed on a two-year sailing trip to Central America, through the Panama Canal and into the Caribbean.

The family eventually returned to their home on Bainbridge Island, Washington, where Bischoff learned to play a wide variety of instruments. Bischoff has some fluency on a number of woodwinds (saxophone, clarinet), brass (tuba, trombone, trumpet) and stringed instruments (electric bass, guitar, ukulele, banjo, stand-up bass, cello, violin). As a composer, Bischoff is largely self-taught having attended part-time college classes on the topic and gaining experience by writing arrangements and compositions for fellow artists in the Seattle music scene. Music was also a family tradition. His father, who had studied music at the University of California, Davis with John Cage and Stanley Lunetta, had been in avant garde and experimental bands throughout the 1970s.

Bischoff first emerged as a sideman, co-writer, and accompanist in several bands. In the first decade of the 2000s, he was a member and collaborator with Parenthetical Girls, Xiu Xiu, Degenerate Art Ensemble, and The Dead Science. More recently, he was a member of Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra, and has collaborated with The Wordless Music Orchestra, yMusic and Contemporaneous.

Bischoff gained attention as a solo performer upon the 2012 release of Composed and a related instrumental album Scores: Composed Instrumentals. The album features nine orchestral pieces with a different vocalist on eight of the nine tracks. Many of the vocalists are well known, and included David Byrne, Caetano Veloso, Mirah, Carla Bozulich (Evangelista, Geraldine Fibbers), Craig Wedren (Shudder to Think), Dawn McCarthy (Faun Fables), Zac Pennington (Parenthetical Girls), Soko and more. Guest soloists included Greg Saunier (Deerhoof) and Nels Cline (Wilco).