Composer and cinematographer J.E. Hernández (b.1993) is a Mexican-born, Houston-based composer focusing on elevating personal and cultural narrative through his work. J.E.’s music has been featured by distinguished ensembles and organizations such as the Kennedy Center for the Arts, Houston Grand Opera, American Opera Project, Performing Arts Houston, Apollo Chamber Players, Foundation for Modern Music, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, American Composers Forum, the Brazil National Orchestra, and in a wide variety of films, both in the United States and abroad. He holds a degree from the University of Houston. Past teachers include Marcus Maroney and Gregory Spears.

J.E.’s work focuses on both traditional and multi-disciplinary mediums, and he has collaborated with directors, choreographers, and playwrights. His process cultivates creativity through stewarding tangible life experiences through an intensive, multi-narrative process that is mathematical, philosophical, and historical; these include environmental displacement, anthropologic self-assessments, and non-artistic life narratives.

Recent and upcoming projects include helah, a chamber work focusing on the transformative aspect of generational historicity and trauma, commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera’s HGOco; Voces Fantasmas, a multi-disciplinary work dedicated to people in immigrant facilities, excerpts of which were featured by the Kennedy Center for the Arts; Desert Shelter, a piece for string sextet and dance which deals with the bodily decay that migrants experience when crossing the Sonoran desert, premiering at the Wortham Theater in 2023; a McKnight Visiting Composer Residency with American Composers Forum; and a fellowship with American Opera Project’s Composers & the Voice program, where he will workshop a wide variety of operatic works with world class singers, culminating in a premiere.