Jeffrey Schanzer is a composer and guitarist involved in a wide variety of music, ranging from fully notated to fully improvised. He has studied composition with Morton Feldman and Anthony Davis and guitar with Oswald Rantucci.

No More In Thrall, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, where his father was a prisoner, performed by the Sirius String Quartet with percussionist Kevin Norton, has been released on the Composers Recording Inc. (CRI) label. The Schanzer/Speach Duo, in which he performs with his wife, composer/pianist Bernadette Speach, has performed across the United States as well as in Puerto Rico and Europe. The Duo's first CD, Dualities, was released in January, 1992 on the Mode/Avant label (Mode/Avant 02) and was chosen as one of the top ten recordings of 1992 by Robert Hicks in Jazziz magazine. The Jeffrey Schanzer Ensemble has performed at The Kitchen, St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn, The Alternative Museum, Roulette, The Knitting Factory, Trinity Church and Greenwich House. The Ensemble's first recording, Vistas, featuring Leroy Jenkins, Ned Rothenberg, Lindsey Horner, Bobby Previte and Bernadette Speach, was released in 1988. (The LP is available for purchase. Contact the composer for details.) Within the context of the Duo and his Ensemble, Jeffrey has worked with such musicians as Lester Bowie, Marty Ehrlich, Eli Fountain, Jason Hwang, Joseph Jarman, Oliver Lake, Myra Melford and Wadada Leo Smith. Jeffrey's compositions have been performed by the Buffalo Guitar Quartet, Essential Music, MOBI New Music Ensemble, Musicians Accord, Newspeak, New York Virtuoso Singers, mezzo-soprano Isabelle Ganz, baritone Thomas Buckner, soprano Cheryl Marshall, singer Theo Bleckmann, flutist Barbara Held, pianist Joseph Kubera, harpist Elizabeth Panzer and the flute/harp duo Giverny. He has collaborated with choreographers David Alan Harris, Jon Kinzel, Lynne Pidel, Emily Schottland and Nadine Tringali. Jeffrey also appears as a sideman on Leroy Jenkins’ and Joseph Jarman’s Out of the Mist on Ocean Records. As a guitarist, Jeffrey has worked with many other composers and has performed at the North American New Music Festival, Lincoln Center and the Darmstadt Internationale Fereinkurse für Neue Musik, Germany. In addition to composing and performing, Jeffrey has been active in organizing musicians' cooperatives and producing music independently of highly commercial venues. He was a founding member of the Buffalo New Music Ensemble, former Music Program Co-Ordinator at the Alternative Museum, former President of the Musicians of Brooklyn Initiative (MOBI) a musicians' and artists cooperative founded by Lester Bowie, Oliver Lake and Cecil Taylor and formerly on the Board of Directors of Upper Hudson Musical Arts.

"Jeffrey Schanzer is undoubtedly an eclectic composer, he takes himself seriously but never becomes heavy-handed." - Frank van Dixhoorn, de Volkskrant (Holland)

No More in Thrall is "a powerful five-movement work of clear structures, compelling processes, and distantly quoted political songs." - Kyle Gann, The Village Voice

"Schanzer's writing is effective -- the music is intense and wide-ranging in emotion." - Kevin Holm-Hudson, 20th Century Music

Vistas "is a valuable entry in a growing body of work that is bridging the traditional gap between composition and improvisation." - Allen Lowe, Ear Magazine

"exquisitely beautiful compositions" - Jack Foran, The Buffalo News

"Jeffrey Schanzer ... [is an] improvising guitarist, exploring the areas opened up for the instrument by rock's Jimi Hendrix and free music's Derek Bailey." - Robert Palmer, The New York Times

"Schanzer's guitaring is meditative and pure, though its origins are spread across Asia, Africa, and downtown Manhattan" - Kyle Gann, The Village Voice

"Highlights of a challenging set [on the Jenkins/Jarman CD Out of the Mist] include the dense block chords and reverbed guitar lines of [Schanzer on] 'Hands'" Billboard