Malachai Bandy

Assistant Professor of Music; Music History
  • Expertise

    Expertise

    A native of Los Angeles, Bandy has amassed a professional performance record on some twenty instruments spanning over 800 years of music history. He completed his Ph.D. in historical musicology as a Provost Fellow and Oakley Endowed Fellow at the University of Southern California鈥檚 Thornton School of Music, with the dissertation, 鈥淣umber, Structure, and Mathematical Theology in Dieterich Buxtehude鈥檚 Basso Ostinato Psalm Settings鈥 (2022). Before pursuing doctoral studies at USC, Bandy graduated cum laude with Distinction in Research and Creative Work from Rice University鈥檚 Shepherd School of Music with degrees in double bass and music history. His current scholarly projects concern musical expressions of occult philosophy and number symbolism in the North-German Baroque, as well as viola da gamba technique, repertoire and iconography. He has presented his work at national and international conferences, including annual meetings of the American Musicological Society, the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music, the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music and the International Society for the History of Rhetoric, and at special-topics conferences handling Esotericism in Music (Nazareth College, 2020) and Music and Visual Culture in Renaissance Italy (University of Sheffield, UK, 2019). In 2019 he received both the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music鈥檚 Irene Alm Memorial Prize and the AMS Pacific Southwest Chapter鈥檚 Ingolf Dahl Award in Musicology.

    A sought-after live and studio musician in the greater Los Angeles area, Bandy enjoys a vibrant performing career on a multitude of historical instruments, primarily the viola da gamba, violone and Renaissance double-reeds. He has performed in recent years with American and European ensembles including The Orpheon Consort, Ars Lyrica Houston, Voices of Music, Queens Baroque, and Bach Collegium San Diego, with local solo and ensemble appearances with Ciaramella, Tesserae Baroque, Musica Angelica, and the Los Angeles Opera and Master Chorale. As a recording artist, Bandy is a featured soloist in Bear McCreary鈥檚 scores to the films 10 Cloverfield Lane (yayl谋 tanbur) and Welcome Home (viol), the television shows Outlander (viol), The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (yayl谋 tanbur, viol), Foundation (viol), The Witcher (viol, nyckelharpa), and the Emmy-winning title theme for DaVinci's Demons (viol), as well as various video games including League of Legends (nyckelharpa, viol), Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy鈥檚 Edge (various), God of War (nyckelharpa) and others.

    As an enthusiastic educator of youth, conservatory and college students, and adult amateurs alike, Bandy maintains a private viol studio, regularly conducts meetings for the Southern California Recorder Society and Orange County Recorder Society and serves on rotational faculty for the San Francisco Early Music Society鈥檚 summer Medieval-Renaissance and Recorder workshops. He is a proud board member of SoCal Viols, Southern California鈥檚 new chapter of the Viola da Gamba Society of America (VdGSA), whom he has represented as faculty at regional viol workshops including Viols West (San Luis Obispo, CA) and ViolSphere 2 (Oracle, AZ).

    Research Interests

    • Western Esotericism and 17th-c. Occult Philosophy
    • Historical Constructs of Musical Meaning and Symbol
    • LGBTQIA+ Identities and Western Musical Expression
    • Trans* Identities and Bodies in 17th-c. Alchemical Practice
    • Early Modern Music and Western Visual Culture
    • 17th-c. Rosicrucianism and Mystical Theology
    • Historical-Mathematical Models of Music
    • Music and Early Modern Sexuality

    Areas of Expertise

    • Viola da gamba Technique, History, and Iconography
    • Historical Performance Practice
    • 17th-c. North-German Music and Esotericism
    • Musical Symbolism and Pythagoreanism
    • Baroque Musical Rhetoric
    • Viol Consort Music and Culture
  • Work

    Work

    Publications

    Bandy, Malachai Komanoff. 鈥溾業m Himmel Und Auf Erden鈥: Geometry, Alchemy, and Rosicrucian Symbol in Buxtehude鈥檚 Herr, Wenn Ich Nur Dich Hab鈥 (BuxWV 38).鈥 In Explorations in Music and Esotericism, edited by Marjorie Roth and Leonard George, 255鈥75. University of Rochester Press, Boydell & Brewer, 2023. .

    Bandy, Malachai Komanoff. 鈥溾榃ith the base Viall placed between my Thighes鈥: musical instruments and sexual subtext in Titian鈥檚 Venus with musician&苍产蝉辫;蝉别谤颈别蝉.鈥&苍产蝉辫;Early Music 51, no. 1 (2023): 39鈥52, .

    CD Liner Notes

    Frank Zappa, 200 Motels 50th Anniversary Edition; Co-Authored with Ruth Underwood (Zappa Records and MGM; 2021 Remaster)

    Articles for DecamerONline, USC Levan Institute for the Humanities, 鈥淏ooks, Writing, and Community鈥 Working Group

    As Recording Artist

    As Recording Producer

    • Telemann: Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, Frankfurt 1715 (Whaling City Sound, 2018)
  • Education

    Education

    Ph.D. Historical Musicology, University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music (2022)

    Dissertation: 鈥淣umber, Structure, and Mathematical Theology in Dieterich Buxtehude鈥檚 Basso Ostinato Psalm Settings鈥

    B.Mus. Double Bass Performance, Rice University Shepherd School of Music (2013)

    B.Mus. Music History, Rice University Shepherd School of Music, cum laude, with Distinction in Research and Creative Work (2013)

    Viola da gamba, Organology Studies with Prof. Jos茅 V谩zquez (Austria, Spain, Switzerland) (2013-2019, intermittent)

    Other Principal Teachers: Paul Ellison (double bass), Drs. Adam and Rotem Gilbert (Renaissance winds)

    Recent Courses Taught

    • Secrecy and Sorcery, Sung: Music and Rejected Knowledge
    • Engaging Music
    • Listening to Queer Voices: Radical Identities, Performance, and Transgression in Music, from Hildegard to House
    • Sound and Symbol: Case Studies in Musical Meaning from Machaut to Bach
  • Awards & Honors

    Awards & Honors

    Outstanding Doctoral Graduate Award (USC Thornton School of Music, 2022)

    Irene Alm Memorial Prize (The Society for Seventeenth-Century Music, 2019)

    for 鈥淪quaring the Circle: Structure, Proportion, and Divine Geometry in Buxtehude鈥檚 Herr, wenn ich nur Dich hab鈥, BuxWV 38鈥

    Ingolf Dahl Award in Musicology (AMS Pacific Southwest Chapter, 2019)

    for 鈥溾楳ake of the Man and Woman a Circle鈥: Geometry, Alchemy, and Compositional Unio mystica in Buxtehude鈥檚 Settings of Psalm 42 and 73鈥

    Presser Foundation Graduate Award (2016)

    Wagoner Fellowship for Study Abroad (Rice University, 2013)

    Friends of the Fondren Library Research Award (Rice University, 2010)