Percussionist and teaching artist Jacob Gutierrez is crafting a career model around being a true 21st-century musician. With experience ranging from his touring percussion trio to performances at the Kennedy Center, Gutierrez is charting a career path of entrepreneurialism in tandem with award-winning musicianship.
Gutierrez is most known for his work in cultivating the percussion repertoire, creating evocative concert experiences that both entertain and educate. To this end, he and his two brothers co-founded 3G Percussion, a nationally recognized percussion trio. Having toured in Texas and across Canada with Ensemble Atlantica, 3G has been featured on Houston Public Media Radio Station, the San Antonio Current, and “Live & Local” on KRTU 91.7FM. Furthermore, 3G proudly collaborated with multiple organizations to create large-scale interdisciplinary works, including the Transitory Sound and Movement Collective. With TSMC, Gutierrez spearheaded an hour-long performance of dance, film, and music with creatives from Dallas and New York City. 3G was also the anointed Guest Ensemble at the 2018 Space City New Music Festival, where they gave the world premiere of Marcus Maroney’s work “Escape,” in addition to sixteen other works by composers from around the United States, Mexico, and Germany.
A proud proponent of new music, Gutierrez is a member of several commissioning consortiums to generate new music from composers such as Alejandro Vinao, Emmanuel Sejourne, Juri Seo, and Rajna Swaminathan. He has performed some of the era’s most celebrated–and challenging–work for percussion, including Kaija Saariaho’s “Six Japanese Gardens”, Joseph Schwantner’s “Velocities”, Alejandro Vinao’s “Book of Grooves”, and Peter Klatzow’s “Dances of Earth and Fire”.
Gutierrez has performed with recognized artists and ensembles including the Yale Percussion Group, Sō Percussion, Caroline Shaw, Magda Giannikou, Yale Jazz Combo, MUSIQA, The Cadets Drum & Bugle Corps, and has appeared at Canada’s Pacific Region International Summer Music Academy, Western University, Lone Star College Contemporary Music Festival, Rothko Chapel, the Space City New Music Festival, the So Percussion Summer Institute, and the Cloyd Duff Timpani Masterclass. Furthermore, as a member of The Cadets, he was named as part of the country’s top drum corps percussion section in 2013, receiving the Fred Sanford High Percussion Award. As an orchestral musician, Gutierrez has performed under the baton of renowned conductors such as Marin Alsop, Joseph Young, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Peter Oundjian, Raymond Harvey, Arthur Arnold, and Laurent Pillot.
Looking to make as deep an impact as possible for the artistic community, Mr. Gutierrez serves for the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Space City Performing Arts. Space City serves as an educational resource for the musical arts community that aims to create opportunity and connection for emerging musical artists. He co-founded the Space City New Music Festival, a yearly summer gathering of contemporary composers and performers which celebrated its first launch in the summer of 2018.
Gutierrez holds degrees from Yale University, the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Houston, and is a licensed K-12 music educator in Texas.
Velocities by Joseph Schwantner
Six Japanese Gardens by Kaija Saariaho
Dances of Earth and Fire by Peter Klatzow
Madera Viento y Metal by Alejandro Vinao
O Sacrum Convivium by Olivier Messiaen
Electric Counterpoint by Steve Reich
Land by Takatsuga Miramatsu
In a Landscape by John Cage
To The Earth by Frederic Rzewski
Reflections on the Nature of Water by Jacob Druckman
Rebonds by Iannis Xenakis
Impressions by Nicolas Martynciow
Sextet by Steve Reich
Stress & Flow by Alejandro Vinao
Book of Grooves by Alejandro Vinao
Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion by Béla Bartók
Threads by Paul Lansky
Mallet Quartet by Steve Reich
Rain Tree by Toru Takemitsu
Peaux ( from Pleiades ) by Iannis Xenakis
Third Construction by John Cage
Extremes by Jason Treuting
Phantasmata by Gunther Schuller
Seaborne by Garth Neustadter
