Rafael Hernandez was born in Bethesda, Maryland in 1975, though he considers himself a native of Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he grew up. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1998 and his Master of Music degree from The University of Texas at Austin in 2001. Currently he is a Chancellor's Fellow at Indiana University where he is pursuing a DM in music composition. Rafael has studied with Sven-David Sandstrom, Don Freund, P.Q. Phan, Sydney Hodkinson, Dan Welcher, Donald Grantham, Russell Pinkston, and Allan Blank.
Some of Rafael’s accomplishments include a BMI Student Composer Award for PASTICHE (1997) in 1998, participating in the Oregon Bach Festival's Composer Symposium in 2000, and having his orchestra piece, MAN EXPANDING (1999), read by the American Composers Orchestra during the 2000 Whitaker New Music Reading Sessions. In 2001, he was awarded the Margaret Lee Crofts Fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center to study composition. Most recently, Rafael was commissioned by the Boston University Tanglewood Institute to write a work for wind ensemble. This work, INCONURVANNA (2001), was premiered by the Boston University Young Artists Wind Ensemble under the direction of Frank Battisti on August 2nd, 2001 in Ozawa Hall at the Tanglewood Music Center.
Rafael currently lives in Bloomington, Indiana with his wife, Rachel, and his daughter, Novlyne.