Hello. I’m a composer.

Composer and cinematographer J.E. Hernández (b.1993) is a Mexican-born, Houston-based composer focusing on elevating personal and cultural narrative through his work. J.E.’s music has been featured by distinguished ensembles and organizations such as the Tanglewood Music Center, the Kennedy Center for the Arts, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Houston Grand Opera, American Opera Project, Performing Arts Houston, Apollo Chamber Players, Foundation for Modern Music, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, American Composers Forum, the Brazil National Orchestra, and in a wide variety of films. He holds a degree from the University of Houston. Past teachers include Marcus Maroney, Gregory Spears, and Gabriel Pareyón. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Music Composition at the University of California, San Diego.

Hernández’s artistic practice is centered on fostering dialogue—between histories, communities, and artistic disciplines. By integrating pre-Columbian artistic frameworks with contemporary technologies such as real-time sound processing and wearable movement devices, he seeks to create spaces where originary and modern knowledge can engage in dialogistic performance. His work is about activating memory, sound, and movement as tools for understanding and healing in a post-colonial world. His interest in interdisciplinary storytelling extends beyond composition, integrating cinematography, movement, and site-responsive performance as ways to engage with the spaces and people that shape his work.

Recent and upcoming projects include helah, a chamber work focusing on the transformative aspect of generational historicity and trauma, commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera; Voces Fantasmas, a multi-disciplinary work dedicated to people in immigrant facilities, excerpts of which were featured by the Kennedy Center for the Arts; Desert Shelter, commissioned by Performing Arts Houston, a work for string sextet and dance which deals with the bodily decay that migrants experience when crossing the Sonoran desert, premiering at the Wortham Theater in 2023; a McKnight Visiting Composer Residency with American Composers Forum; and a commission from Opera Theater of St. Louis as part of the New Works Collective.

Photo Credit: Claire McAdams (https://www.clairemcadamsphotography.com)