Rafael Hernandez
Professor of Theory, Composition, and Music Technology
Office: MB2118
Telephone: (510) 885-3309
Email: rafael.hernandez@csueastbay.edu
Rafael Hernandez was born in Bethesda, Maryland in 1975, though he considers himself a native of Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he grew up. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1998 and his Master of Music degree from The University of Texas at Austin in 2001. As a Chancellor's Fellow at Indiana University, Rafael earned his Doctor of Music in music composition. He studied at Indiana University with Sven-David Sandstrm, Don Freund, P.Q. Phan, Sydney Hodkinson, Keith Fitch, Dan Welcher, Donald Grantham, Russell Pinkston, Peter Knell, and Allan Blank.
Rafael's accomplishments include a BMI Student Composer Award for PASTICHE (1997) in 1998 and participation in the Oregon Bach Festival's Composer Symposium in 2000. His orchestra piece, MAN EXPANDING (1999), was read by the American Composers Orchestra during the 2000 Whitaker New Music Reading Sessions and premiered by the University of Texas Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Kevin Noe in 2001. Rafael has been an artist associate at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. In 2001, he was awarded the Margaret Lee Crofts Fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center where he was commissioned by the Boston University Tanglewood Institute to write a work for wind ensemble.
This year Rafael has been selected to participate in the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, California as a composer-participant in the "In The Works" program. Other recent commissions and happenings include a commission from guitarist Bret Hoag for a set of solo guitar pieces, a commission from the Non Trio, a recording of PASTICHE by the Cramped Spaces piano/percussion ensemble of Terre Haute, IN released commercially in the summer of 2003.
Rafael comes to the East Bay from Bloomington, Indiana with his wife, Rachel, and his two children, Novlyne and Ulysses.
(revised 8/06)
