Known for his energetic rhythms, rich harmonic language, and striking colors, Colombian-American composer Josh Rodríguez (b. 1982) continues to gain recognition as an emerging composer and collaborator on a national and international scale. Born in Argentina and raised in Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States, Rodríguez’s musical imagination has been formed by this bilingual multicultural heritage.
Rodríguez collaborates regularly with theatre and film directors and has received notable concert commissions in a wide range of musical genres: works include Dos Palabras, which won the Inaugural Springfield Chamber Chorus Composition Competition (2022) and is available on Spotify/iTunes, When Stone Becomes Forest (Winner of THE AMERICAN PRIZE – Professional Band Division 2022), Partita Picosa (a 5-movement piece for solo piano), Contra Spem Spero (violin chamber concerto), and That Crazed Girl Improvising (piano trio), all which were finalists for the AMERICAN PRIZE (TIKAL, for concert band received Honorable Mention, 2021).
He’s written numerous choral works, music for jazz trio and big band, original scores for Courtyard Shakespeare Festival’s productions of Hamlet (2019), Much Ado About Nothing (2022), Richard III (2022), and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (2019), and CBU Theatre’s productions of Love’s Labour’s Lost (2020) and She Stoops to Conquer (2021). In addition to concert and theatre music, Rodríguez has scored numerous film projects (currently THE TEMPEST by Rebel Run Studios), several of which have appeared in international film festivals and received special awards.
Rodríguez (ASCAP) is composer-in-residence of the Corona Symphony Orchestra, and currently serves as Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the Elmhurst University. He regularly contributes to various arts & culture blogs and is on the Leadership Team of Deus-Ex-Musica an initiative that brings musicians, clergy, and non-musicians together for concerts and conversations about the intersection of faith and new music.
Rodríguez earned his MM at the Cleveland Institute of Music and upon winning the Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship moved west to study a doctorate at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research at UCLA culminated with his dissertation on Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera.
For more about Josh: https://www.joshrodriguezmusic.com/