Isa Yélamo-Cockcroft (they/she/he) is a Venezuelan-American composer and performer native to Atlanta, Georgia, USA. They are a student at Tennessee Tech University, where they currently study composition with Dr. Griffin Candey.

  
Influenced by movie and anime scores from the age of 8 and raised with the traditional music of Venezuela and the Roman Catholic Church, Isa began writing and transcribing music at 12 and began formal music education in the form of flute and occasional composition lessons with composer Nicole Chamberlain at 14. They played in honor orchestras and band clinics throughout high school before continuing to study music at Tennessee Technological University, with Dr. Mary Matthews as their flute professor and Dr. Greg Danner as their composition professor before studying under their current professors, Dr. Griffin Candey and Dr. Gözde Çakır-Ramsey (flute). 

 

Isa's music is deeply inspired by their Venezuelan and Catholic roots as well as by their interest in social justice and musicology, using their works as a means of self expression, activism, and connection with others. They regard music as a uniquely universal form of human connection that is as rich, diverse, and intertwined as the cultures of the world, the music of all of which deserve respect, study, and attention. Their works vary greatly in subject matter and tone, ranging from intensely personal and meaningful issues to silly, cute pieces for fun, all while maintaining fluid, connected lines and engaging hemiolas that are key elements in their musical voice.

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Along with primarily studying as a composer, Isa has performed as a flutist at the 2019 Viennese Masters Orchestra Invitational in Carnegie Hall with the Metropolitan Youth Symphony Orchestra of Atlanta as well as with the Tennessee Tech Flute Choir at the 2022 MidSouth Flute Convention, the 2022, 2024, and 2025 National Flute Association Conventions, and the 2023 and 2024 Florida Flute Association Conventions. They have also toured with the Tennessee Tech Chorale as a tenor in Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida in 2023, in Knoxville in 2024, and in Scotland and the Republic of Ireland in 2025.

In their free time, Isa loves spending time with their cats, baking, gaming, participating in activism, and studying linguistics, art history, civil rights history, and ethnomusicology!

Full résumé and CV can be found here: