Bio
Photo Credit: Nico Salum
Jason Anthony Gomez is a California-based composer, violinist, and educator, whose recent foray into electronic music is represented on the new EP, Beauty Beyond the Divide.
Gomez has played violin since he was young. He continues to create, perform, and teach with the instrument which greatly informs the decisions he makes as a composer. "I am constantly exposed to a wide range of composers like J.S. Bach, Claude Debussy, Dave Brubeck, and John Coltrane. Studying music in college is where I got my first exposure to the early electronic pioneers like Morton Subotnik, Milton Babbitt, and Wendy Carlos."
Throughout much of 2020 and 2021, Gomez crafted one-minute electronic vignettes he called Mini-Tracks. They represented a way to explore new musical ideas, especially in the electronic medium. "Before working on these short pieces I hadn’t really considered myself an electronic composer, so this was all pretty new to me," Gomez says.
With the 2021 EP Beauty Beyond the Divide, Gomez expands the electronic techniques and ideas discovered in Mini-Tracks into fully developed movements. Rock and alternative bands are also a prominent influence. The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds is among them, audibly influential on the EP track "Scintillations from the Anza-Borrego."
In 2018, Gomez was a Composition Fellow at Alba Music Festival, where his quartet for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano titled Dance was premiered by SOLI Chamber Ensemble.
Gomez currently plays violin with Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra. He also performs as a violin/clarinet duo with his partner Kristin called Air and Water Duo. They enjoy a peaceful life together with their not-quite-as-peaceful cat named Freddy.