Biography
John Montez is a Brooklyn-based composer of choral music. Originally from California, he fell in love with the lush harmonies of jazz at a young age. This colorful and free harmonic sensibility has influenced his music since the beginning. Growing up Roman Catholic, John became acquainted with the world of choral music through the music of the Catholic liturgy. As a practitioner of Theravada Buddhism and Christian Mysticism, John is attracted to the beauty and mystery of sacred texts which are often his subject matter. Beyond the strict usage of sacred texts, John's music often focuses on the universal themes of love, beauty, and Buddha nature. John takes, as his raw materials, what he has inherited from the sacred tradition: Gregorian modes, polyphony, and Anglican melodic shaping. Combining these in unique ways with experimental forms and a rich harmonic sensibility, John's two musical realms, the sacred and secular, meet at the exposition of the single theophanic light.
While studying classical piano as a teen, John felt the urge to push harmonic boundaries. He was fortunate to be taken on as a jazz student of Bill Marx, son of Harpo Marx of the Marx Brothers, and a renown jazz pianist and composer. It was in those years studying jazz while also serving as the accompanist (and occasional bass voice) for his choir at Xavier College Preparatory School that the sacred and secular styles began to freely mix in his student works. John studied with composer and church musician Wayne L. Wold at Hood College where he refined his voice in sacred music. While pursuing his master's degree at Brooklyn College, he studied with experimental composers Douglas Cohen and Tania Leon. His master's thesis Another Look at Process, a work for piano 6 hands, is an attempt to distill music down to its simplest components of process and input. In 2020, John won the Pauline Oliveros Award for Experimental Music.
John continues to work in both the sacred and secular worlds of choral music. In 2025, his piece Unit S837, a setting of text from a fictional user manual of an office appliance with special features, was performed by the ensemble Hyphae at Dixon Place in New York City. His arrangement of Good King Wenceslas was performed that same year by the Dessoff Choirs under the direction of Malcolm J. Merriweather, Director of the New York Philharmonic Chorus.
