Joseph
Julian Gonzalez is a
film, television and classical concert music composer with
credits that include the feature films CURDLED, PRICE OF
GLORY the Academy Award-Nominated Documentary Feature
COLORS STRAIGHT UP the television series RESURRECTION BLVD.
and the Britney Spears’ music video “Oops, I
Did It Again.” His television movies include THE
CISCO KID and the Imagen Award-Winning FOR THE LOVE OF MY
CHILD: THE ANISSA AYALA STORY. He also composed the score
for the multiple award-winning PBS documentary mini-series
CHICANO: THE HISTORY OF THE MEXICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT.
He has composed several contemporary classical concert
pieces for the avant-garde Kronos Quartet. His large-scale
symphonic, choral and percussion ensemble piece, MISA
AZTECA, has been performed at Carnegie Hall and in 2004
opened the prestigious Cervantino International Music
Festival in Mexico with President Fox in attendance.
Sections of the MISA AZTECA were performed at the Sydney
Opera House in Summer, 2006 and recently at the Saint-Denis
Music Festival in Paris in 2007.
The feature documentary COWBOY DEL AMOR, directed by
Michèle Ohayon with an original score by Gonzalez, was
nominated for an International Documentary Association and
Writer’s Guild of America Award in 2006. He recently
completed the scores for the feature documentaries STEAL A
PENCIL FOR ME, which won the “Best of the Fest”
Audience Award at the 2007 Sonoma Film Festival and ANGELS
IN THE DUST which won Best Documentary Special Jury Prize
at the 2007 Seattle International Film Festival and the
Audience Award at the 2007 Full Frame Documentary Film
Festival. It will be released theatrically September, 2007
by Cinema Libre. His most recent score for MADE IN LA
recently premiered at the 2007 Silverdocs Documentary
Festival.
Hailing from California’s Central Valley, Gonzalez
studied classical guitar from Theodore Norman and
composition for motion picture from legendary film composer
David Raksin (LAURA, MODERN TIMES) at UCLA. After touring
with several groups including The New Christy Minstrels,
Gonzalez became music director of Luis Valdez’s (LA
BAMBA, ZOOT SUIT) much heralded theater company El Teatro
Campesino. There he started his career by composing the
score for LA PASTORELA, a PBS Great Performance Christmas
Special.
