ICON Collective, Music Production School, shuts its doors after 20 years

ICON Collective, the renounced electronic music production school has decided to close its doors on May 29th, after 20 years of operation, citing “financial struggles”.

The private music school, located in LA, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy back in August of 2024 in an effort to preserve operations before ultimately closing this past week.

“It is with deep regret and a heavy heart that we share the news that ICON Collective will be permanently closed as of May 29,” co-founder, David Alexander Valencia, says in a statement. “ICON has faced financial circumstances that require a prompt closure to protect the refunds and tuition payments potentially due to students.”

ICON Collective has housed many notable alumni such as Jauz, Bonnie x Clyde, Dack Janiels, Effin, HVDES, i_O, Kompany, NGHTMARE, PLS&TY, Slander, Um.., Sullivan King, and so many more. While the schools website remains active, the schools official instagram has been since deactivated. A letter was sent individually to currently enrolled students which stated the following;

“For the past two years, I’ve been funding operations out of my own pocket and haven’t taken a salary since 2022. Instead, I invested my life savings back into ICON, to give ICON a chance to thrive. When I officially gained ownership in February 2025, I immediately began working with strategic partners to take ICON to its full potential in the new campus. But this past week, an unexpected and devastating development occurred: the U.S. State Department halted visa interviews for international students. This created an immediate and significant impact on our projected enrollment so severe that it made it impossible to continue operations without putting refund obligations and student interests at risk. That was a gamble I was not willing to take“, Valencia writes.

” I made the decision to close ICON not out of defeat, but out of responsibility. Continuing to operate without the ability to meet commitments to students would have caused greater harm. This path, though heartbreaking, was the only way to ensure a responsible wind-down.”

While is this not only devasting to all students, international students have been dealt a handful, giving them only 15 days to either transfer schools or return home.

The lengthy statement goes on to explain the process in which refunds, transcripts, and teach-out options for currently enrolled students, which you can read in full here.

Many artists have taken to social media to speak a little bit about how ICON changed their lives as musicians, “Icon Collective changed EVERYTHING for us.. today is a very sad day for the music community in losing such a priceless resource,” SLANDER wrote on X. “We want to thank everyone at the Collective for all the blood, sweat, and tears they put into MAKING DREAMS HAPPEN.” Kompany writes, “RIP Icon Collective, That school changed the course of my life and career. Forever grateful.”

It’s a heartbreaking end of an era, and end of an institution that strived to give the dance community so much, not only in its great artist-alum, but in the budding producers, for ICON Collective seemed like a potential place to call home.