Gabriela Sofia Gómez Estévez

Gabriela Sofia Gómez Estévez is a classically trained flautist and conductor pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts and Orchestral Conducting at Louisiana State University. She received her Master’s of Music from the same university in 2019 and her Bachelor’s of Music from Berklee College in 2017. As a 2022 CUNY DSI Research and NSA Fellow, Gómez Estévez will undertake a historical research project on the life and works of distinguished composer and pedagogue, Margarita Luna García, who passed in 2016. Born in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic in 1921, Luna García studied with musicians of the caliber of Francisco García, Paul Marx, Manuel Rueda, Manuel Simó, and Hall Overton. She left behind a rich repertoire of compositions, one of which Gómez Estévez will draw upon to produce performance materials for her PhD dissertation. The Symphonic Works of Margarita Luna García: Context, Aesthetic, Conception and Performance will rely on archival research conducted in the Dominican Republic and United States, including at CUNY DSI’s Dominican Library, where she will consult the Félix Jiménez music collection, donated by Feliz Jimenez (Felucho) last year.