COMPOSER/ARRANGER

"Tony García's accomplishments as educator, composer, performer, and teacher are highly regarded throughout the professional and educational music world. The Commission Project and others concerned about music are better for Mr. García's invaluable contributions."
Ned Corman, Director,
The Commission Project


Taking a bow on the Carnegie Hall stage with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

Antonio García is frequently commissioned for jazz, symphonic, chamber, film, and solo works—instrumental and vocal—including grants from Meet The Composer, The Commission Project, The Thelonious Monk Institute, The Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, regional arts councils, state and district music associations, and individual schools and ensembles. His music has been performed by such artists as Sheila Jordan, Arturo Sandoval, Denis DiBlasio, James Moody, and Nick Brignola, with airplay over radio throughout the U.S. (including National Public Radio and CBS-TV) as well as Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. His works have been published internationally by Kjos, Hal Leonard, Kendor, Doug Beach, Walrus, UNC Jazz Press, Three-Two Music, ejazzlines, and his own company, with scores for independent films screened throughout the U.S. and in Italy, Macedonia, Uganda, Australia, Colombia, India, Germany, Brazil, Hong Kong, Mexico, Israel, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. He is the recipient of honors for compositions and arrangements from IAJE (jazz band), ASCAP (orchestral), and Billboard (pop songwriting) and is an experienced user of FINALE software. A recent commission was performed at Carnegie Hall by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

"ingenious scoring...exotic orchestral colors, witty riffs and gloriously uninhibited splashes of dissonance...translucent textures and elegant voicing...shrewd arrangements..."
Chicago Tribune

García has composed or arranged literally hundreds of works. Review a listing of those original compositions most readily available as Published Works. (At this link you can hear sound-files of many of the compositions. )

If you would like to discuss potentially commissioning a work, please contact Antonio García directly. Fees are flexible, and he may assist you in identifying co-sponsorship from additional funding sources.

"The Beethoven Septet is kind of a monolithic piece; it's hard to know what to program with it. So I had this idea of commissioning a piece from Tony. He's so—he's like a chameleon; he can write anything; and he can write in so many different idioms. And I thought, well, the Beethoven was such, like, popular music back in the day. So what if Tony wrote a piece that showcased popular music of Richmond? And my idea was to go backwards in time, from right now back to 1800. And so Tony has written a piece that showcases different popular music styles in Richmond through the years. These include punk and rock and swing jazz and bluegrass and choral music and spirituals. So it'll be really exciting to rehearse this piece. It has a lot of kind of techniques that I can pull out of my back pocket every once in a while; but I still have to try really hard: like ‘chopping’ and ‘scratching’ and kind of ‘scat-style’ playing on the cello. So we'll see how it all fits together. I think it was a kind of concept-idea in my mind, and now I'm really excited to see it come to life."
James Wilson, Artistic Director, Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia (regarding my commissioned composition "Exordium" as a prelude to the “Septet, Op. 20” by Ludwig van Beethoven.)

The CMSCVA performing García's commission "Exordium.".


Conducting the Hanover Concert Band (VA) on his commission celebrating the band's 25th Anniversary.			Conducting one of his jazz ensemble compositions.