Inspired journey: Music director Santos making international inroads as composer

Santos currently directs La Sierra’s Wind Ensemble, Chamber Winds and Big Band and teaches various courses in music education, conducting, composition, and popular music. Two years after beginning his position with the university, he completed a first major composition in 2017 for a performance by the wind ensemble in televised professional music festivals in the Czech Republic and the Republic of San Marino, the only college-level performers to participate.

“That was the beginning of my composition career,” Santos said. A work “Voyages” for the U.S. Naval Academy Band Brass Ensemble soon followed. He connected with the group through a friend and band trumpeter. Due to unexpected circumstances, Santos ended up directing the band himself in a debut of his work at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. in January 2018. That March, Dr. Santos led the University Wind Ensemble in a performance at Carnegie Hall, performing premieres by faculty and students.

Over the past four years, Santos has composed over 30 works for solo winds, chamber ensemble, and for large ensembles. Consortiums of schools have commissioned his compositions and university ensembles around the United States have performed his works including the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Illinois, Florida State University, University of Florida, UCLA, among many others.“So it just keeps going,” Santos said. The frequent travel to guest-conduct at different schools including high schools, also presents recruitment opportunities for attracting students to La Sierra, he said.

“It can just be about my son's Legos and how I step on them at night sometimes. … it's almost like a soundtrack.” -- Dr. Giovanni Santos, music director and composer, on inspirations.

Last year Santos’ work “Passionately Curious,” a piece featuring six trumpets composed in 2020 was performed July 31 under the hand of his graduate school mentor and renowned conductor H. Robert Reynolds in a concert at the famed Tanglewood Music Center, home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra; and on Oct. 5, a major wind ensemble piece titled “Chavez, 1927” commissioned by a consortium of universities and colleges premiered at the University of the Pacific. Dr. Santos served as conductor and composer-in-residence. The work honors civil rights and labor activist Cesar Chavez.

A companion piece, Santos’ “Symphony for Band,” recognizes Chavez’s fellow activist Dolores Huerta. It debuted the first week of February 2023 at the one of the nation’s largest gathering of music educators, the Texas Music Educators Association convention in San Antonio.

Last November, the Pacific Symphony Youth Wind Ensemble gave the world premiere of Santos’ saxophone concerto, “I Dream Awake” at Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa. In addition, his wind ensemble piece “Timba,” written in the rich musical traditions of Cuba, was premiered by the Allen High School Wind Ensemble at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic. Last year, his piece “Mayagüez, was performed at the same conference by the VanderCook College of Music band.

Santos’ family life has served as a frequent inspiration for his compositions. “It can just be about my son's Legos and how I step on them at night sometimes,” he said. “That's one of the movements of a piece called “Miniatures for Chamber Wind Ensemble. It's 10 movements and every piece is dedicated to different person and different events … it's almost like a soundtrack.”

More recently, his heritage and causes close to his heart have compelled Santos’ writing. “Lately it’s been about things that are truly important to me, like social justice,” he said. This focus resulted in a piece titled “Three Latin American Dances” which reflects the three cultures in his household – Cuban, Dominican, and Mexican.

Santos’ compositions are published exclusively by Murphy Music Press, LLC. His music has also been picked up by education book publishers – a new conducting workbook soon to hit the market titled “Expanding the Canon” will include his works.

Inspired pivots

During his late teenage years and into his 20s, Santos played trumpet with Tim Davies Big Band. Davies, a Grammy-nominated Hollywood composer, orchestrator and percussionist left an impression on Santos whose aim at the time was a career as a professional trumpet player. The band played Davies’ works exclusively. “We didn't play any standards, and that was really inspiring to me,” Santos said. “I was really always very intrigued by improvisation, jazz harmonies and progressions, and so on my own, I would kind of dabble a little bit, write a few things down.” The experience planted a seed that would later evolve into musical compositions as a significant component of Santos’ career.

Following his work with Tim Davies’ band, Santos wrote small ceremonial fanfares and pieces for church, and had conversations with top composers to gain insights into the craft. But time for tackling large-scale compositions eluded him. Meanwhile, his central career path switched tracks.

As with the inspiration toward composition, interests in conducting were piqued by a professional acquaintance, in this case the noted wind ensemble director Reynolds, former principal conductor of the Thornton Wind Ensemble at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. Santos earned his master’s degree in trumpet and music education from the school in 2007. At the time Santos was pursuing a career as a professional trumpeter, but a first rehearsal with Maestro Reynolds changed everything.

“It wasn't until I started attending USC that I fell in love with band music and conducting,” Santos said. “That's where I met one of my biggest influences to this day. Professor H. Robert Reynolds is the biggest and most influential name in band conducting. So I was very lucky to meet him. He became a mentor of mine. I remember the first day I had a rehearsal with him. I fell in love with what he was doing and I decided at that moment, that's what I'm gonna’ do. It was life-changing. It was also the beginning of a relationship spanning almost 20 years and counting.”

“Since getting here, he made his vision clear in how he approached recruitment of students, how he mentored them so carefully, even beyond their graduation here, and how he has developed his other talents." -- Dr. Elvin Rodriguez, Professor of Music, La Sierra University

Years later in summer 2022, Santos and his wife, Tanya, would watch Reynolds conduct Santos’ own composition at the prestigious and historic Tanglewood center in Massachusetts. Renowned composer Frank Ticheli was also present to hear his own work performed as part of the repertoire. “It was one of the greatest professional moments of my life,” Santos said.

Following graduate studies, Santos’ conducting interests led to employment teaching for the Los Angeles Unified School District, Maywood Academy High School. After a short stint as Director of Bands at Maywood Academy School in East Los Angeles, he accepted the Director of Bands position at Loma Linda Academy. He led the academy ensembles on tours around the U.S. and Europe with appearances at Walt Disney Concert Hall and across prestigious halls across Europe. He accepted his current position at La Sierra University in 2015.

Elvin Rodriguez, a La Sierra music professor and department chair at the time Santos was hired noted Santos’ vision and tenacity to work out that vision, his musicianship and comfort level with the department as a La Sierra alumnus as among the elements that attracted Rodriguez's attention to the budding musician.

“I had kept my eye on his development and achievements, and when an opening came in that area, he was immediately on my mind,” Rodriguez said, describing Santos as a rising star within the professional music world. “Since getting here, he made his vision clear in how he approached recruitment of students, how he mentored them so carefully, even beyond their graduation here, and how he has developed his other talents, mainly, his composition vein which has been immensely productive, consistent, and effective.”

Santos also serves as a guest conductor and clinician around the United States and in other countries where he frequently directs his own pieces. Last summer, he was invited to serve as an American representative for the World Association of Symphonic Band and Ensemble International Conference in Prague, Czech Republic. He gave a presentation on conducting and served as an adjudicator for a composition competition.

This January, he served for a week as a conductor-in-residence at the Manhattan School of Music directing his and other composers’ works. His current schedule of guest conducting appearances and performances is full through May with programs occurring in several states.