top of page

Karl Evangelista

Guitarist, Composer

Filipino-American guitarist/composer Karl Evangelista (b.1986) ranks among a new wave of  musicians pushing the traditions of jazz and experimental music into the 21st century.  Synthesizing the heavy legacy of contemporary improvised music with popular song and 20th  century composition, Evangelista explores multicultural concepts with sonic intensity and  political fervor.  


Signal to Noise magazine hails Evangelista as "one of the most original instrumentalists and  composers of his generation," and as the creative force behind boundary-breaking group Grex,  Evangelista's music has been called an "otherworldly experience" (Eugene Weekly) and "a  near-seamless blend of modern jazz, contemporary structuralist composition, indie rock, and  blues rock" (Tiny Mix Tapes). 


Evangelista has performed with the likes of Andrew Cyrille, Fred Frith, Oliver Lake, Louis  Moholo-Moholo, Bobby Bradford, Scott Amendola, and Ben Goldberg, as well as Asian Improv  aRts masters Francis Wong, Jon Jang, Tatsu Aoki, and Hafez Modirzadeh. He currently lectures  in the department of Race and Resistance Studies at SFSU.

Job Title

3rd Generation

Bay Area, CA, USA

AIR Artist

Karl Evangelista

Photo by Lenny Gonzalez

bottom of page