His students included Gary Karr, the first bass player of the modern era to make a career as a solo artist, and Edgar Meyer.
Sankey dedicated his musical career to expanding the repertoire of the double bass through exhaustive editions, arrangements and original compositions including more than 45 publications, many issued for the first time.
He authored a dozen articles on double bass playing and technique that have been published in the United States and abroad.
He performed under every major conductor of the 20th century, including Serge Koussevitsky, Sir Thomas Beecham, Leonard Bernstein, Herbert Von Karajan, Zubin Mehta, Sir Georg Solti, Ernest Ansermet, Pablo Casals, Aaron Copland, Otto Klemperer, Michael Steinberg and Igor Stravinsky, with whom he recorded several works.
In Aspen, Sankey appeared with Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Szymon Goldberg, William Primrose, Zara Nelsova, Rosina Lhevinne and Oscar Gighlia, among many other distinguished artists.