Antonio Sanchez

Born in Mexico City, 4 time Grammy Award winner Antonio Sánchez began playing the drums at age five and performed professionally in his early teens in Mexico’s rock, jazz and Latin scenes. He pursued a degree in classical piano at the Superior School of Music in Mexico City and in 1993 made his move to Boston where he enrolled in Berklee College of Music and later signed up for amaster’s diploma from New England Conservatory. Since his move to New York City in 1999, Antonio became one of the most sought-after drummers in the international jazz scene. Following 22 years and 9 albums as one of the most revered collaborators of guitarist/composer Pat Metheny, he also has recorded/performed with many other most prominent artists like Chick Corea, Gary Burton, Michael Brecker, Charlie Haden, Toots Thielemans, Béla Fleck, Mike Stern, Joshua Redman, John Patitucci and many others.

In 2014 Sánchez’s popularity soared when he scored Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)which ended up fetching 4 Academy awards (including best picture)and for which Antonio won a Grammy award. Additional film/tv projects include 3 seasons of EPIX network's Get Shorty, feature films Harami, Politica: Manual de Instrucciones and Hippopotamus, the 6part HBO Docuseries The Anarchists, the 6 part British series STAGS for Paramount+ as well as 2 seasons for the Apple+ hit TV series with Seth Rogen The Studio. Antonio is also scheduled to score the new A24 Peacock series Super fakes featuring Lucy Liu premiering in 2027.

He also appeared in Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead alongside Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Gary Clarke Jr, Robert Glasper, Esperanza Spalding and Keyon Harold. Sánchez currently has close to a dozen recordings as a leader, coleader, solo artist and film composer. His critically acclaimed solo debut album Migration featured Chick Corea and Pat Metheny. Other ground-breaking and well received projects feature his band Migration which record the through-composed epic The Meridian Suite and Lines in the Sand where Sánchez turns his political angerinto a moving musical statement of epic compositional proportions as much a protest against injustice in our current political climate and as a tribute to every immigrant’s journey.

Other solo albums comprise the star studded album Three Times Three (featuring Brad Mehldau, John Scofield, Joe Lovano, John Patitucci, Christian McBride and Matt Brewer), Grammy nominated Bad Hombre —a socio-political electronica & drums exploration, Channels of Energy, an ambitious project with the WDR Big Band with arrangements of his works by Vince Mendoza.
His genre-bending 9th solo album SHIFT – Bad Hombre Vol. II on Warner features a star studded cast that includes Trent Reznor, Dave Mathews, Pat Metheny, Meshell Ndegeocello, Lila Downs, Ana Tijoux, Silvana Estrada, Kimbra, Becca Stevens, Maro, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Thana Alexa and SONICA as well as Antonio’s acting legend grandfather Ignacio Lopez Tarso.

He’s been touring this project forever 3 years with his sonically adventurous band Bad Hombre.Some of his co-leader credits include Elipsis with Michael League and Pedrito Martinez, BEAT with Béla Fleck and Edmar Castaneda and Trio Grande with Will Vinson and Gilad Hekselman. Antonio’s film composer skills are on display on the official soundtrack albums for Birdman, Get Shorty and The Studio.

As an educator, he founded the Antonio Sanchez Jazz Residency in Mexico City at the National Center for the Arts which attracts over100 students each year and he has regularly imparted clinics, lectures and masterclasses all over the world for almost three decades. To date Antonio has been awarded 4 Grammys, nominations for Golden Globe, Emmy & BAFTA Awards, wins for the World Soundtrack New Artist Discovery and Best Original Film Score Award,3 Echo Awards, Hollywood Music in Media Award, the Critics’ Choice Movie Award and 5 Modern Drummer’s Drummer of the Year Awards in the Jazz and Fusion categories among many other wins and nominations. Sánchez has also been the featured cover artist on over 25 publications including Down Beat (twice), JazzTimes (twice) JAZZIZ, Modern Drummer (3 times), Drum!, Batteur, Jazzit and Drumhead among many others.

TELEVISION

Superfakes
Studio: A24
Showrunner: Alice Ju

The Studio
Studio: Lionsgate TV
Producer: Alex Gregory / Peter Huyck

Stags
Studio: Paramount
Producer: Eleven Films

The Anarchists
Studio: Blumhouse
Producer: Chris McCumber / Jeremy Gold / Jeremiah Crowell / Jason Blum

Get Shorty
Studio: Epix
Producer: Davey Holmes

FILM

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Studio: Fox Searchlight
Producer: Arnon Milchan, John Lesher
Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Política, manual de instrucciones
Studio: MediaPro
Producer: Jaume Roures
Director: Fernando León de Aranoa

Harami (The Bastard)
Studio: Germ Collective
Producer: Mohit Rastogi/ Parvesh Kumar Singh/ Dori Zuckerman
Director: Shyam Madiraju