Victor Gama

Victor Gama is a composer, performer, designer of innovative musical instruments as well as an electronics engineer. He holds a BSc in electronics engineering and an MA in Music Technology from the Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design in London and was recently guest artist at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University and at MIT Center for Art Science and Technology.

He performs solo, with his trio or with ensembles playing his large pieces from small to big halls such as the Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall or Centro Cultural de Belém. He makes music for dance, film, theater and multimedia performances using his unique set of musical instruments as exclusive sound libraries. He's been commissioned to compose for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra/MusicNOW, the Kronos Quartet or the Prince Claus Fund and has created instruments for collections  in museums such as the National Museums of Scotland. INSTRUMENTOS, his award winning interactive exhibition with workshops and concerts, has been installed at London's Royal Opera House, Madrid's Fundación Carlos D'Amberes, UK's National Center for Design and Crafts and many more.

Gama is a composer whose process begins with the creation of an entirely new instrument, one whose design is steeped in symbolic meaning. Concept design, the selection of materials, fabrication, and scoring is all part of the rigorous way Gama creates new music for the 21st century, blending current fabrication technologies with ideas, materials, and traditions inspired by the natural world.

In Gama’s philosophy — heavily influenced by the pre-colonial architecture and cosmology of his native Angola — the instrument is a ritual form, a container of meaning whose design reflects a constellation of allusions to stories, beliefs, and social and natural events. The instrument is not just an instrument, but a “symbolic system” and “semiotic interface” created by the composer.

He has exhibited his instruments and sound installations and performed extensively in Africa, Latin America, USA, Canada and Europe.