Jo Blankenburg

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Born and raised in Munich, Germany, Jo Blankenburg found music at an early age by playing organ, piano, and drums. With a self-taught foundation based on a diverse sound palette that revolves around classical and electronic music themes, Jo trusts his instincts and leans on a strong sense for particular sound aesthetics to build timeless musical works. His creative mind is constantly buzzing with new ideas and he has found ways to craft evocative narratives through music. Jo is now an accomplished award-winning composer with musical works featured in films and movie trailers such as Colette, Wonder Woman, 300 - Rise Of An Empire, Beauty And The Beast, How To Train Your Dragon, The Hunger Games, Assassin's Creed, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, The Wolfman, Lincoln, X-Men First Class, and more. One of the pinnacles in Jo's career is when he worked with “Lord of the Rings” creators, Richard Taylor and Peter Jackson on various projects as well as writing the main theme song for New Zealand's most popular show event "World of Wearable Arts" Blankenburg currently resides ... [ more ] Born and raised in Munich, Germany, Jo Blankenburg found music at an early age by playing organ, piano, and drums. With a self-taught foundation based on a diverse sound palette that revolves around classical and electronic music themes, Jo trusts his instincts and leans on a strong sense for particular sound aesthetics to build timeless musical works. His creative mind is constantly buzzing with new ideas and he has found ways to craft evocative narratives through music.

Jo is now an accomplished award-winning composer with musical works featured in films and movie trailers such as Colette, Wonder Woman, 300 - Rise Of An Empire, Beauty And The Beast, How To Train Your Dragon, The Hunger Games, Assassin's Creed, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, The Wolfman, Lincoln, X-Men First Class, and more. One of the pinnacles in Jo's career is when he worked with “Lord of the Rings” creators, Richard Taylor and Peter Jackson on various projects as well as writing the main theme song for New Zealand's most popular show event "World of Wearable Arts"

Blankenburg currently resides and records in Los Angeles, where he stays up on the intersection of popular music and trends in cinema. Outside of California, Blankenburg has recorded with renowned orchestras in London, Germany, New Zealand, and the Czech Republic.

One quick glance over fan’s sentiment on Blankenburg’s music, and you’ll quickly see adjectives such as “moving”, “emotional”, “touching”, and “breathtaking”.
His intricate piano melodies and tasteful layers of strings and underlying percussive elements blend together and create a mesmerizing musical experience that allows listeners to momentarily escape reality and build their own interpretations. Listening to Blankenburg is akin to living in a majestic fantastical world alive with keen curiosity, vivid colors, dark desires and obstacles, introspection, and self-fulfilling moments of epic triumph.

Jo also has a true passion for moving pictures and capturing film himself. He enjoys all aspects of filmmaking including directing and cinematography. He has been known to upload mesmerizing and visually stunning videos to his YouTube channel to pair with his musical releases. Jo’s creative work often goes beyond just what you hear in your headphones or speakers and reaches visual heights while unlocking deep emotions and memories buried in forgotten realms of the subconscious.

His prolific catalog spans across two decades and has garnered tens of millions of streams from music fans around the world. His original songs “Garador’s Flight”, “Vendetta”, and “Imperatrix Mundi” quickly connected online when they were released in the 2010’s— launching Blankenburg as a heralded figure in the increasingly popular epic trailer music and modern classical music zeitgeist—a pedestal shared by very few. Currently Jo is collaborating with other pioneering electronic music artists and producers.

Fueled by the visceral connection music creates, Jo’s a hard-working musician with endless creative energy and ideas. His technically savvy yet humanistic approach to music has inspired millions and his output will undoubtedly continue to exhilarate many more generations to come.

Born in Germany, Jo’s journey with music started at the age of six, when he first began playing the piano and the drums. He was an active member of two jazz formations in his teenage years, and after a two year stint in New York (where he worked in the genres of Funk, Soul and R&B), he went on to win the MTV Europe Songwriting Contest. But despite the achievements, music remained his hobby as opposed to a profession. In the beginning of 2007, Jo moved to Auckland, New Zealand. It was only then that he became a full-time composer, and hasn’t looked back since.

He worked with leading Motion Picture Advertising company Immediate Music, and also scored shorts, documentaries, feature films, provided the signature theme music for New Zealand’s greatest show event in Wellington and wrote original music for a project at the helm of Richard Taylor of Weta Workshop. He is currently writing music for Motion Picture Advertising for Los Angeles-based music publishing company Position Music.\r\n\r\nWhat Jo loves most about his vocation is the impact his music is able to have on the lives of those who listen to it. \r\n\r\nJo has completed a Film Scoring and Orchestration Course at Berklee College of Musicin Boston, and is currently residing in Los Angeles, USA.\r\n\r\nHis tracks have been used in the advertising campaigns of major Hollywood feature films such as 300 – Rise of an Empire, The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, X-Men: First Class, Lincoln, Hitchcock, How To Train Your Dragon, The Wolfman and many others. [ less ]