Composer Gabriela Ortiz fuses the multicultural expanse of Mexico City with classical forms, building a new musical language that draws on the multiplicity of her heritage. Her catalog is filled with works that share the experiences, moments, and ideas that have shaped her life; touching on themes like feminism (most recently in Revolución Diamantina) and climate change (Fractalis), Ortiz sees music as a vehicle to garner a greater understanding of ourselves and each other.
“Music has the power to enrich the spirit of human beings,” she said over Zoom. “I believe music has the power to change lives and to change the soul of other people.”
Music has always come naturally to Ortiz. She was introduced to the joy of music making by her parents, who played in the Latin American folk music ensemble Los Folkloristas. From an early age, she played charango and guitar in the group with them while studying classical piano. Some of her favorite memories surround the communal joys that music brought. Her face lights up on our call as she recalls dancing with abandon with groups of friends, dancing to The Beatles with her mother, and letting the sheer elation of music making take over her. These formative moments weren’t about having flawless technique — it was about the feeling, the way the music could bring everyone just a little closer together.
“Although I don’t have a good voice, in my childhood, I was just always singing songs,” she said with a laugh. “I think that the music chose me, because since my really old memories, music was always there and I always loved it.”
Ortiz began her classical training on the piano, but when she discovered Bartok, she knew she wanted to compose. On piano, she had been playing many of the German classical composers — Bach, Beethoven, Schumann — to whom she didn’t necessarily relate. But Bartok immediately spoke to her: his intricate, interwoven rhythms showcased a different type of patterning, and he built his own world through his melodic language. Most of all, he brought folk music into classical forms, indelibly imbuing them with the spirit of Hungary. Ortiz was inspired by his ability to infuse his heritage into music; she saw that maybe she could do something similar, so she began composing short piano pieces. “When I did that, I liked it so much, and I discovered something new for myself,” she said. “And then I said, ‘Wow, I’m not going to be a pianist. I want to be a composer.’”
This is a momentous year in Ortiz’s career. During the 2024-25 season, she will serve as the prestigious Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall, who will present seven concerts spotlighting her music, and she will have premieres elsewhere with distinguished ensembles like the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She views these opportunities as crucial places to share both her music and the breadth of Mexican culture with United States-based artists and audiences, who often receive less exposure to the music of Latin America. “It’s an urgency to show that we exist and we have really good composers, from now and from [the past],” she said.
Her work also extends into educational spaces. This year, Ortiz is composer-in-residence at the Curtis Institute of Music, who will present a portrait concert of her wide-ranging works on October 12. Performed by Curtis New Music Ensemble (formerly Ensemble 20/21), the program celebrates Ortiz’s practice over the past 25 years, with featured works including De ida y vuelta (2016) for two guitars, which bridges Spanish flamenco and Mexican folk music; Tin-Tan-Fanfarria y Mambo (2021) for solo trumpet, a salute to Germán Valdés of Mexican cinema; Exilios (2018) for clarinet and string quartet, which tells stories from the Spanish Civil War; and the world premiere of Cedrus, a new work for solo marimba.
Gabriela Ortiz — Photo by Mara Arteaga
The event is part of Curtis’ 100th anniversary season, which highlights the school’s longtime commitment to presenting groundbreaking, world-class musicians and innovative programming. Ortiz is particularly excited to collaborate with Curtis’ students — a unique aspect of the school’s composer-in-residence program, in which the invited composer has the opportunity to work closely with students on their work. For Ortiz, getting to introduce her music to young voices is another important chance to build a necessary bridge and encourage cultural exchange across generations.
In addition to bringing her Mexican heritage to her compositions, Ortiz also addresses broader socio political issues. Lately, she has been thinking about climate change, telling stories of the natural world and ways humans interact with it, both positively and negatively. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she found herself thinking ahead, wondering about the state of the planet in the future. Music was a way of engaging with these big questions, and her piano concerto Fractalis imagines ways to reinvent nature that has been harmed by climate change.
Fractalis captures the chaos of coming to terms with issues like climate change that are so large, they’re nearly incomprehensible. The concerto blends flexible, inquisitive solo piano melodies that create an air of mystery in their dissonances – floating, twinkling, and coming untethered – while the orchestra responds with rhythmic force. Sudden bursts of intricate patterns call to mind one of her favorite composers, Stravinsky; elsewhere, her rhythms stem from the dance music and cultures of her heritage.
Her cello concerto, to be premiered this season by the Los Angeles Philharmonic with a subsequent performance at Carnegie Hall, also explores environmental themes by illustrating the cenotes of the Yucatán Peninsula through music. The cenotes are a system of underground caves and rivers whose importance is multifaceted. They hold within them deep spirituality and require preservation in order to continue supporting the ecosystems that live off of them. They’re marvelous wonders to view, but they also provide important resources for the living beings that surround them, notably acting as the source of drinking water for the region. Historically, too, they were a spiritual center for the Mayan people, who viewed them as the source of life itself and a portal into the underworld.
Ortiz’s concerto, titled Dzonot, seeks to address the way climate change affects the cenotes on all levels — historical, spiritual, and physical. “Music is a way to communicate,” Ortiz said, underscoring the value of using music to tell stories like those of the cenotes. “Music, for me, is about sharing with your friends, with the audience, with the listeners, with the performers.”
To be able to share so deeply, Ortiz believes you must live life, to experience all it has to offer, and to enter the world in all its beauty and pain. Ortiz’s career is an example of the power of bringing your full self to your music. Her compositions embrace the joy and freedom she felt performing as a child; they stem from the political and social understanding she has learned as times change; they are born from the sounds of her heritage that are part of her being. Upon reflection, Ortiz believes the way to develop your compositional voice is to soak in every bit of your surroundings. “Be aware about so many issues, because maybe you can transform [something],” she said. “You never know. You can change the life of someone else.”
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