The ARTZenter Composer’s Grant Program was established to encourage the creation of new music by emerging composers that explores the power and grace of the traditional orchestral ensemble. The Emerging Composer Completion Grants are available to young composers across the United States currently enrolled in a degree-granting program of study in music composition.
The six winning composers will receive a $3,000 completion grant, as well as accommodations in San Francisco and a $600 travel allowance for airfare. They will be invited to participate in a 3-day open rehearsal workshop at San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, January 14-18, 2025. Over the course of this period, composers will participate in feedback sessions with the Contemporary Music Players and Artistic Director Eric Dudley. The rehearsal workshops will culminate in a recorded “open work-in-progress rehearsal” of the six works at Herbst Theatre on January 17, 2025. Based on the final readings, a select group from the six composers will receive an additional grant of $3,000, as well as funding to support travel and housing to attend an additional 5-day residency in San Francisco in June 2025. The Phase 2 residency will culminate in a premiere performance at Herbst Theatre by San Francisco Contemporary Music Players.
Angel Gomez Ramos is a Mexican composer that integrates the young generation of Mexican creators of art. He is a graduate of the Conservatory of Music of the State of Mexico, where he was part of the musical creation workshop led by Armando Luna and Fernando Durán, obtaining a high degree of recognition in the bachelor in composition. He is very active working on projects with different musicians like Irvine Arditti, Faustino Diaz, Aníbal Robles Kelly, NAS duo, The Ensemble of Contemporary Music of the National Conservatory of Music, Juan Trigos, Benito Navarro, Anacrusax ensemble, The Symphonic Band of the Superior School of Music of the National Institute of Fine Arts, and with the Symphonic Band of Oaxaca, among others. His works have been presented at festivals throughout Mexico and some other countries, such as the Cervantino International Festival, the International Forum of New Music “Manuel Enríquez”, the Eduardo Mata Festival, the National Trombone Week “Gustavo Rosales”, and the International Guitar Festival in Monterrey. All of this, in forums such as the National Palace of Fine Arts, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the National Arts Center, the Blas Galindo Auditorium, the Iconographic Museum of Don Quixote, the “Macedonio Alcala” Theater, the Art Center of San Agustín, the Old Palace of the Archbishopric, the Auditorium "Silvestre Revueltas" of the National Conservatory of Music, among others. He has been selected for the Program of Creative Stimulation and Cultural Development of de State of Mexico, as a young creator, since 2014. He won the absolute prize in the International Composition Contest of the Iconographic Museum in Guanajuato, México, Also the Absolute Prize of the Composition Contest of the International Guitar Festival in Monterrey, the International Composition Contest of the Orkvs Ensemble, the Composition Competition “Manuel M. Ponce”, and, recently the “Manuel de Falla” International Composition Competition. In the Conservatory of Music of the State of Mexico he was assistant teacher of the chair of counterpoint; specializing the workshop on musical theory from the fourth to the eighteenth centuries. In addition to being assistant of the course of Theory and Music Literature in the same institution. In the year 2015 he develops a project of musical formation in the marginal communities of the Mixtec region of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. He also was in charge of the theoretical and research area of the “Musical Pride of Guanajuato” program, as part of the project “Sustainable System of Music Formation of the State of Guanajuato”.