Quick Facts
Biography
José Evangelista (born 5 August 1943) is a Spanish composer and music educator who is based in Montreal, Canada. A member of the Canadian League of Composers, the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores, and an associate of the Canadian Music Centre, Evangelista is known for his commitment to contemporary classical music and non-Western music. In 1974 he was awarded first prize in the Confederación Espanola de Cajas de Ahorros Contest in Madrid for his En guise de fête. In 1978 he helped found Les Événements du neuf, a concert society dedicated to avant-garde music. In 1982 he was awarded a special prize from Spain's Ministry of Culture for his work Vision, and in 1988 he won first prize in the choral works competition of St Mary Magdalene's Church in Toronto for his O quam suavis est. Since 1972 he has taught on the music faculty of the Université de Montréal. Among his notable pupils is composer Analia Llugdar.
Life
Born in Valencia, Evangelista began his professional training at the University of Valencia where he studied computer science for seven years and earned a degree in that subject in 1967. At the same time he pursued music courses at the Valencia Conservatory and earned a premier prix in music composition there in 1967. His most influential teacher at that school was Vicente Asencio who taught his harmony, composition, and orchestration classes.
In 1969 Evangelista moved to Canada and settled in the city of Montreal. From 1970-1973 he was a pupil of André Prévost at the Université de Montréal where he earned a Master of Music in composition. In 1974 he studied contemporary music at the Darmstadt Conservatory for a semester, later returning there for similar studies in 1984 when he was named a composer-in-residence at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse. In the Fall of 1974 he entered the graduate music program at McGill University where he studied composition with Bruce Mather and earned a Doctor of Music in 1981.
Evangelista has been active in Canada with the Traditions musicales du monde, a concert society dedicated to promoting non-Western music which he helped found. He developed an interest in the music and culture of Southeast Asia and a number of his compositions reflect that interest. In order to pursue studies in this music, he lived in Indonesia during the summers of 1976 and 1980 and in Burma during the summer of 1986 where he studied the Javanese gamelan and Burmese piano. He was made composer-in-residence at the Akademi Musik Indonesia in Yogyakarta in 1986.