Drawing on her multi-cultural background, Alice Gomez is rapidly
gaining international acclaim for her Latino and Mexican Indian influenced
compositions. She grew up in San Antonio, Texas, a city rich in cultural
diversity, playing the drums in her father's Latino dance band. Alice
spent three years, from 1993-1996, serving as Composer-in-Residence, through
Meet The Composer, Inc., with the San Antonio Symphony - a role that united
the symphony with the largely Hispanic community of San Antonio. During
her tenure, Ms. Gomez created 21 new works. Since 1990, she has also worked
as an arranger of Hispanic and popular music for the San Antonio Symphony.
She has arranged music for its Pops series featuring Tejano artists Emilio
Navaira, Patsy Torres and Esmeralda. The television broadcast of the 1994
"Pura Vida" Hispanic Music Awards opened with Ms. Gomez' "La
Charanga Sinfonica", performed by the San Antonio Symphony. The Symphony
also performed Ms. Gomez' musical arrangement of the Tejano Song of the
Year, "La Charanga", by Fandango, U.S.A.
In 1996, Ms. Gomez was selected to participate in the Gateways '96 Commission,
a residency with the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio. This
commission includes teams of Mexican and U.S. choreographers, composers,
and playwrights, creating and participating in the production and presentation
of new multi-disciplinary works in the performing arts.
Alice is also an Instructor of Music at San Antonio College where she
teaches basic composition, percussion, world music, and jazz ensemble.
As a percussionist, she performs professionally with a variety of musical
groups including The San Antonio Early Music Ensemble and The San Quilmas
Consort, as an extra percussionist with the San Antonio Symphony, and
as a co-founder of the Latin folk performing/recording group Marimba Quest.
In addition to performing, she has lectured at several schools and universities
throughout Texas. She has also served in an advisory capacity on panels
for The National Endowment for the Arts and Meet The Composer, Inc..
Alice's first orchestral composition was a concerto for timpani and orchestra
entitled "Primitive Echoes". This concerto is a spiritual piece
based on Mexican and American Indian rhythms. The premiere performance
was in November of 1992 by the Winters Chamber Orchestra before a capacity
audience at Trinity University's Ruth Taylor Hall. The concerto was written
for and performed by Marilyn Rife, Principal Percussionist and Assistant
Timpanist with the San Antonio Symphony. Ms. Rife has also performed "Primitive
Echoes" with the San Antonio Symphony.
Various political and social struggles have influenced Gomez' compositions.
In the fall of 1993, Alice was awarded an individual artist's grant from
the city of San Antonio's Department of Cultural Arts and Affairs for
her "Mass for Justice and Peace". This composition is a musical
and spiritual plea for universal peace and understanding, and was inspired
by the devastation of the starvation in Somalia. Ms. Gomez' chamber work
for viola, percussion and piano, "Number 9", depicts the Bosnian
struggle. "...and justice for all" was commissioned by the City
of San Antonio for the 1995 Diez y Seis celebration, and premiered by
the San Antonio Symphony at the Avenida Guadalupe. In February of 1996,
the San Antonio Symphony premiered Ms. Gomez' "Homenaje a Cesar Chavez",
a tribute to the widely-known fighter for migrant farm workers' rights.
In 1998, Ms. Gomez received an American Society of Composers, Authors
and Publishers (ASCAP) award for the fifth year in a row. This award is
granted by an independent panel of musicians, academicians and critics.
Ms. Gomez' music has been featured regularly on San Antonio public radio
station KPAC, as well as on programs for public television such as "Heritage"
and "ArtBeat". Recordings of her non-symphonic works are commercially
available, as well as sheet music for her symphonic and chamber compositions,
for purchase or performance rental.
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