Multi-instrumentalist Malachai Komanoff Bandy is Assistant Professor of Music at Pomona College. He holds a Ph.D. in historical musicology from the USC Thornton School of Music, supported by Provost and Oakley Endowed Fellowships. Previously, Bandy graduated cum laude, with Distinction in Research and Creative Works from Rice University (double bass; music history). In 2019, he received both the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music’s Irene Alm Memorial Prize and the AMS Pacific Southwest Chapter’s Ingolf Dahl Award in Musicology. As a historical string and double-reed player, Bandy has performed with The Orpheon Consort, Ars Lyrica Houston, Bach Collegium San Diego, Voices of Music, Musica Angelica, Tesserae Baroque, Ciaramella, and as a viola da gamba soloist with Los Angeles Opera and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

An active TV/Film recording artist, he is a featured soloist in Outlander, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Foundation, and others. Bandy’s scholarly projects concern Christian mysticism, esotericism, and numerology in German Baroque repertoires, as well as viola da gamba technique and iconography. His recent articles can be read in the journal Early Music (Oxford University Press) and in the volume Explorations in Music and Esotericism (University of Rochester Press).