José Evangelista
Valencia (Spain), 1943
During his musical studies with Vicente Asencio, José Evangelista simultaneously studied physics. In 1970, work in computers brought him to Canada where he studied composition with André Prévost and Bruce Mather. Between 1979 and 2009, he was a professor at the Université de Montréal where, in 1987, he created the Balinese Gamelan Workshop. He has won several prizes and garnered numerous commissions, including two operas and one monodrama. José Evangelista pursues an artistic path where he explores ways of making music based exclusively on melody. Hence he has developed a heterophonic writing, both for instruments and orchestra, where the melodic line generates echoes of itself and creates an illusion of polyphony. His music draws its roots from an enlarged vision of tradition: from his Spanish origins he has added the influence of the Indonesian gamelan, the Western avant-garde and modal musics.