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D. J. Rodriguez is a Chicago-based US and Canadian composer whose work centers on vocal and choral music, with a focus on text-driven storytelling, collective memory, and community-rooted expression. His compositional practice draws on lived experience, collaborative music-making, and long-term engagement with arts and advocacy communities.
Rodriguez is currently composing Requiem for a Lost Generation, his debut large-scale choral work, conceived as a memorial honoring lives lost during the AIDS crisis. The project brings together his background as a singer, arts professional, and longtime community organizer, grounding the work in both musical tradition and lived history.
For more than 15 years, Rodriguez has been deeply involved in LGBTQ+ community organizing, leading and supporting initiatives centered on remembrance, mutual aid, fundraising, and large-scale community events. This work has shaped his artistic values, emphasizing responsibility, care, and the power of collective ritual—principles that lie at the heart of his approach to sacred and secular choral music.
Rodriguez studied music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the University of British Columbia. Through his composing, he seeks to create music that serves as both artistic expression and communal act, inviting performers and audiences into shared spaces of reflection, grief, and remembrance.
Current Project
Current Project
Requiem for a Lost Generation is a new ~ 30-minute choral work that honors and remembers those lost during the AIDS crisis. Set using the structure of the traditional Latin Requiem Mass, the piece traces the arc of the epidemic through nine movements— moving from liberation and sudden fear to grief, activism, compassion, and hope. At a time when sacred ritual was often denied to queer people, the work reclaims the Requiem as an act of witness and healing. By weaving together liturgical form, remembrance, and lived LGBTQ+ experience, the piece transforms historic ritual into a space where a generation is neither silenced nor forgotten.
Requiem for a Lost Generation is moving toward its first performance. A Kickstarter campaign supporting its premiere and recording will launch soon, and those who wish to be part of bringing this work into the world are invited to join the mailing list for updates and opportunities to support the project.
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