Photo taken January 2, 2005
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Justin Saragoza

Born July 2, 1953 in the mining town of Pioche, Nevada. While living in relative isolation in the southwestern desert he took an interest in serious composition shortly before the last quarter of the 20th Century. His major efforts during this time have included 'The Flight of the Martian Probe (Symphony no.3; ca. 1976-1986)', 'Source Sets for Theatre Pieces Books 1 & 2', 'Oceanus Procellarum -- A Treatise In Electronic Music', and 'Tales of Artificial Intelligence', a self-generating computer text composition. Over the last few years he has composed only a few short musical pieces instead concentrating on performing and arranging for the electric guitar in a small four piece combo.

From 1970 to 1975 he studied guitar, theory, and composition with jazz guitarist Gene Briscoe [1]. Later studies include the Clark County Community College at Las Vegas and the Berklee College of Music (Keith Hatschek). Saragoza is listed in Marquis Who's Who in Entertainment (1989/90). 12 symphonies, 2 dance operas, and over a dozen theatre pieces are among his catalog of over 400 pieces. He is a member of ASCAP. He has been a member of The American Federation of Musicians, The National Association of Composers USA, The Society for Music Theory, Las Vegas Jazz Society, Audio Evolution Network, Sonic Options Network, SEAMUS, The Electronic Music Foundation (Charter Subscriber), and The Nevada New Music Society in which he was the society's first editor. His music has been broadcast on radio station across the US such as KOMP, KUNV, KXJC, KXCI, KAOS, WVKR, WBER, & WMUH. Articles & reviews have appeared in The Whole Earth Catalog, Option, Las Vegas Review Journal, & Shakin' Fever. He has had exhibitions/performances at The University of Texas Austin, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts - Boston MA, The Mercer Gallery Monroe Community College - Rochester NY, re:Source Art Center, Inc. - London Ontario Canada, and Media International Art Show - San Francisco CA, and numerous other venues.

He invented a system of composition later classified as 'Serialminimalism' which he first utilized in his composition 'Polytonal Geometric Relationships' (1976) and explicated in three theoretical writings: 'On The Formulation of Tone Rows and Clusters', 'On Theory', and an overtone matrix based serial minimal theory of composition 'Serialminimalist Files for Composition - Volumns [2] 1, 2, and 3'. The minimalist usage of linguistics and elimination of the analysis of common practice examples explicating theoretical constructs allowed the systematic examination of a semiotic model constructed of number, point, multi dimensional field matrices, empirically defined physical terms, and experimental models built directly into the sound mass thereby abandoning the usual analytical model in use by theorists during the 1970's. The theoretical papers on serial minimal music were submitted for publication over several months beginning in 1977 to The Michigan Music Theory Society for publication but at the time these were deemed to difficult to understand by the editors of In Theory Only (circa 1977) and were refused publication.

He was a member of The Society for Music Theory at the time of the societies founding but left after some years in protest over the society's insistence that musical theoretical discourse would be carried out linguistically rather than as "a pure mathematical music theory devoid of any words whatsoever". He simultaneously created a body of improvised music, looped compositions, and rigidly written out musics.

[1] Gene Briscoe was in the unusual position of being a former student of two extremely influential teachers, Dennis Sandole and Hohan Soken. Sandole was the teacher of the legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. Sandole students were routinely taught in a unique approach which was later published in "Guitar Lore" (Theodore Presser Company - 1976, revised 1981). Soken had designated Gene Briscoe to be the director of Shorin Ryu Karate in the United States and Australia prior to his death. This places Saragoza as a third generation guitarist in a lineage descending from Dennis Sandole and may help explain a simultaneous and sometimes contradictory leaning toward Zen technique in some compositions.

[2] Derived from the word 'column', this respelling was created in order to convey a sense of the supporting structure of the three fundamental types for the entire theory.