"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return."
-- commonly attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci

Premiered January 30, 2014 -- 7:30pm
The University of Texas at Austin - Bates Recital Hall
CLUTCH Wind Ensemble
Marc Sosnowchik, Conductor

Eyes Turned Skyward

Written for Austin Soundwaves, an El Sistema program out of East Austin, Texas, benefitting underserved youth musicians.

Grade 1+ level work for wind band.

Austin Soundwaves Fanfare

drawing circles - (Rodin's The Gates of Hell)

2001 performance of Vaughan-Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. CSULB Symphony Orchestra, cond. by the late Prof. Richard Rintoul. One of my favorite memories as an undergrad in this orchestra.

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

Madden(ning) for Wind Ensemble

Double Switch for String Quartet

Final movement to the Violin Concerto

The University of Texas at Austin - Bates Recital Hall
Live Performance, January 2012
Kevin Mendoza, violin
Hermes Camacho, conductor

Violin Concerto - III.

Hermes Camacho is a composer, conductor, and violinist based in Austin, Texas. 

His music has been performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia and has garnered awards and recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts, American Composers Forum, ASCAP, SCI, the Dallas Wind Symphony, 60x60, MusicX, ArtsAha!, and the Vermont Arts Council, among others, and has served residencies with the Chamber Music Conference of the East, Winthrop University (South Carolina), Boulder Youth Symphony (Colorado), Austin Youth Philharmonic, Northwest Vista College (Texas), Southwestern University (Texas), and the Southwestern College Summer Music Fest (Kansas). 

Camacho has over 150 conducted performances to his credit in a variety of genres and ensemble types, including a performance for a delegation of 45 Ambassadors to the United Nations and a nationally televised broadcast performance for the 2013 Mexican Independence Day festivities in Austin. He has also conducted the premiere of numerous works, primarily with the Sonorous ensemble, a group specializing in contemporary music that he co-founded in 2009. After his freshman year in college, Camacho was invited to serve on the faculty of the Sacramento Youth Symphony, primarily conducting their summer chamber workshop orchestras, coaching small ensembles, and overseeing the Composer-in-Residence program. 

Camacho is currently Lecturer in Music Theory, Aural Skills, and Composition at the University of the Incarnate Word and is on the teaching faculty of Austin Soundwaves, a youth music program benefiting the underserved area of East Austin, Texas, where he leads the wind ensemble and music theory programs, and teaches orchestra, violin, and viola. 

Austin Soundwaves follows the principles of El Sistema, established by Dr. Jose Abreu during the 1970s in Venezuela, among whose most notable alumni include Gustavo Dudamel, the Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the world-renowned Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. 

In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Camacho is also a Co-founder and Content/Development Lead at Picardy, an online education platform for building and developing music skills.

Originally from Northern California, Dr. Camacho earned degrees from Cal State Long Beach (B.M.), the University of Colorado at Boulder (M.M.) and a doctorate from The University of Texas at Austin in 2011. He studied composition with Donald Grantham, Dan Welcher, Yevgeniy Sharlat, Daniel Kellogg, Robin Cox, and Carolyn Bremer, violin with Kimiyo Takeya, conducting with Akira Endo, Richard Rintoul, and Samuel Krachmalnick and masterclasses with Pulitzer-Prize winners John Adams, William Bolcom, Jennifer Higdon, and Steve Reich. Camacho and his wife spend their free time watching the 49ers, SF Giants, Longhorns, or their toddler, Charlie, who endlessly harasses their two (very patient) cats.

HermesComposer