Chris Pratorius Gómez is a composer and music educator based in Santa Cruz, California. He has written operas, a harp concerto, two orchestral works and many pieces for solo voice, choir, chamber ensembles and electronic media that have been performed in San Francisco, Istanbul, New York, Guatemala and other spots around the world.
May, 2019 saw the revival of his opera Xochitl and the Flowers, presented as a collaboration between Opera Parallèle and the San Francisco Community Music Center. Other performances this year include a piece for Wild Rumpus in collaboration with puppeteer Niki Ulehla and a slot in the April in Santa Cruz new music festival at UCSC.
In 2018 he collaborated with Quinteto Latino as artist-in-residence working in East Palo Alto schools, composing music for beginning music students to perform with this professional wind quintet, and working in the classrooms to bring these pieces to life. Later in the year he returned as composer-in-residence for Quinteto Latino’s first Seminario Institute, penning a triple wind quintet titled Cumbia del Quinceañero. Another residency, with Opera Parallèle under the guidance of Nicole Paiement, saw Chris write a trio of children's operas for their Hands-on-Opera educational program from 2015-2017.
Chris teaches theory, history, composition and piano at UC Santa Cruz and Cal State Monterey Bay. He accompanies classes for The Studio, School of Classical Ballet and maintains a private composition studio. Currently he is working on his first dramatic opera: a modern day, Spanish/English bilingual retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac.