Joe Sandy (b. 1999) is a composer from Kaukauna, Wisconsin. He earned his Bachelor's of Music in 2023 from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and is currently studying at Illinois State University pursuing a Master's in Music Composition. He was awarded a 2022 Student Faculty Collaborative Research/Creative Grant in which he composed a five-movement orchestral suite and presented on his research, winning Best Undergraduate Research Presentation at UW Oshkosh. They have won two awards from the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers (WAC) in their Student Composition Contest: First Prize in 2020 for their mallet percussion quartet "Yellowed Fan," and Honorable Mention in 2022 for "Home, 2am" a piano and cello duet. Sandy also composed the score and produced a 2022 documentary "Unconditional: A Journey of Selfless Love" which was a quarterfinalist in the Spokane International Film Festival (SPIFF). They were recently commissioned to compose a polka commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Little Chute Community Band which was premiered in their summer season 2024. Sandy joined the Bloomington-Normal trad jazz band The Sweet Nothings in 2024 and has enjoyed playing accordion and trumpet as well as providing vocals. They are working on both writing an album and their master's thesis project. In addition, Sandy enjoys playing a wide variety of instruments, primarily horn and piano but also Baroque recorder and bass ukulele among many others.