Gilbert Galindo is an award-winning internationally performed composer of classical music, an active DJ-producer, and experienced music engraver. He is also the Executive and Curatorial Director of NYsoundCircuit — a multi-media event series — and has produced concerts and events in New York City for over 10 years.
Photo: Mario Nico
Gilbert Galindo
Powerful - Kinetic - Rhapsodic - Intriguing
Award-winning composer Gilbert Galindo writes “richly rendered music” (Thought Catalogue) of “undeniable power” (The Kansas City Star) with an intriguing palette of colors. A Tejano upbringing in west Texas combines with a love of modes, blues, and jazz to inform Galindo’s rhapsodic abstract lyricism. The result is music that is “densely saturated [with]... sinuous, expansive solos… a pleasure [to be left] reverberating in the memory.” (Chicago Classical Review) Galindo’s multifaceted experience as a DJ and producer adds a unique level of kinetic and kaleidoscopic depth to his writing; “the effect is the same as those visual effects in a painting by Picasso or Klee… this is unique music.” (Odessa American)
In addition to performances nationwide, venues in France, Germany, Italy, Scotland, and Switzerland have presented Galindo’s concert music which ranges from intimate chamber pieces to symphonic works. Festivals and series that have featured his music include the American Composers Alliance Festival of American Music, Concept Lab, the Cortona Sessions for New Music, the Etchings Festival, the Queens New Music Festival, the Festival of New American Music (Sacramento State University), Make Music New York, and Tokyo to New York. Select commissions include works for: the Queer Urban Orchestra for their 2021 Pride Celebration Concert; Sound of Silent Film Festival by Access Contemporary Music; Quintet of the Americas (2020 NYSCA Individual Artist Composer Commission); the Chicago Composers Orchestra; the ÆON Project; the opening of the Odessa High School Performing Arts Center; the Tesla Quartet and the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music; the New Thread Quartet; violist Liuh-Wen Ting; and the Lone Star Brass. Galindo is the recipient of the Herb Alpert/Ucross Residency Prize, grants from the American Music Center and NewMusicUSA, a Van Lier Fellowship from Meet The Composer, two BMI Student Composer Awards, recognition from The Chicago Ensemble’s Discover America Competition, and both Northwestern University’s Cacavas Award (orchestral competition) and William T. Faricy Award for Creative Music. And in January 2023, Neuma Records released Galindo’s debut classical album, “Terrestrial Journeys”.
Galindo’s professional music activities extend beyond classical composition, adding dimension to his writing and enriching his process. Active in New York City’s electronic music scene, Galindo mixes tribal house and dance pop hits with rhythmic and classic flair, at venues including The Stonewall Inn, Rebar, Copacabana, Webster Hall, and the former Splash Bar and Boots & Saddle, all under the name Casa de Galindo. Serving as the Executive and Curatorial Director of NYsoundCircuit, he is the artistic vision behind a multimedia event series on the cutting edge of genre integration. His rich history of collaboration and curation includes positions as Artistic Director of Random Access Music and the Queens New Music Festival, and work with vocal artists, film producers, choreographers, visual artists, fashion designers, and spoken word artists. A gifted music director, Galindo has conducted the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, the Bard Conductors Institute Orchestra, the Cleveland Institute of Music New Music Ensemble, and the Random Access Music Players.
Dedicated to mentorship in music education, Galindo’s teaching experience extends from graduate teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Music to his work as a Teaching Artist in New York City public schools and in his private composition studio. He holds degrees from Northwestern University (BM) and the Cleveland Institute of Music (MM), with additional studies as a Fellow at the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, at the Bard Conductors Institute, the Brevard Music Festival, and at the Freie Universität International Summer University Composition Course in Berlin on scholarship from the DAAD. His most influential teachers include Augusta Read Thomas, Margaret Brouwer, Zhou Long, Samuel Adler, and Jason Eckardt. His music is available from Galindo Musix (BMI) and American Composers Edition (BMI).