Classical composer Gabriela Ortiz brings her distinctive, rhythmic Latin American style to Carnegie Hall

For 59-year-old Gabriela Ortiz, one of Mexico’s best-known classical composers, rhythm is often at the center of her music.  

“The pulse is very important for us, or at least to me. My connection with the rhythm is always like a heartbeat,” the Mexico City native said. “I mean, it’s something that comes really from inside and comes very naturally.”

That’s probably because she grew up in a musical family where she was exposed early on to folk music from across Latin America. Her parents founded a group called Los Folkloristas, which was popular in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Ortiz played charango and guitar with her parents’ group, and also danced flamenco. At the same time, she played European classical music on the piano, from Bach to Beethoven to Bartók. She studied composition at the National Autonomous University of Mexico — where she now teaches — and at London’s City University.

Today, Ortiz has become renowned internationally for her distinctive style that reflects the influences of her formative years. It hasn’t always been easy — throughout her career, she confronted sexism and criticisms that her work was “too exotic,” leading her to have been passed over for commissions.

But in the last several years her star has been on the rise internationally. Currently, her repertoire is being highlighted by the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the Castilla y León Symphony in Spain. And this week, she began a seasonlong residency at Carnegie Hall in New York City. 

 “Of course, it’s a big honor,” she said. “I was also very pleased because I’m the first, probably, Mexican composer to have that [composer’s chair].”

Her breakthrough in the US came when the Los Angeles Philharmonic, then conducted by Esa Pekka-Salonen, commissioned her to write a percussion concerto in 2001.  

It’s been a fruitful collaboration with the LA Philharmonic. When Venezuelan superstar conductor Gustavo Dudamel took over, he premiered seven of her works.

Ortiz said that while she’s nervous every time the LA Phil rehearses a new work for the first time, she trusts Dudamel. 

“Gustavo really knows me,” she said. “He really understands my music on a very deep level. He really is a very good promoter of my music because of that. And it’s a pleasure.”

It was her collaboration with Dudamel that brought her to the attention of Carnegie Hall’s Executive and Artistic Director Clive Gillinson. He and his staff were planning a festival of Latin American music, called “Nuestros Sonidos” (“Our Sounds”), and heard Ortiz’s violin concerto, “Altar de cuerda,” performed by Maria Dueñas and the LA Phil in October of 2022.

“You know, she played this piece, and it just totally brought the house down,” Gillinson said. “Nobody had heard it before. And, you know, so all of us, because we were planning our Latin American festival at the time, hearing that concert, we all said, ‘Well, this is it. This has to be our composer.’”

From October to June, Ortiz’s music will be heard in seven world-premiere concerts at Carnegie Hall, beginning with a new cello concerto called “Dzonot,” which was written specifically for Alisa Weilerstein and the LA Phil. The piece was performed this week. 

“She wrote very, very well for the cello,” Weilerstein said. “She allows the cello to sing. She’s not afraid to push, you know, technical things, and everything is in service of the music. There’s a real depth to the concerto. And it’s great fun to play.”

Next week comes a multidisciplinary piece, for chorus, percussion, solo flute, dancers, actors and video, called “Can We Know the Sound of Forgiveness.” 

The Crossing, a professional choir performs in the piece. Conductor Donald Nally said it was inspired by an epic drawing of the same title by artist James Drake.

“It asks, ‘Can the Earth forgive us?’” he explained. “And then, eventually, to get to the point, you know, can we forgive each other for the kinds of violence that we, you know, enact on each other and et cetera?”

It’s The Crossing’s first time working with Ortiz.  

“We find that with Gabi’s music, it just really comes natural for us to groove with it, really early on in the process,” Nally said, adding, “I feel like this project has given us another musical friend that we know we’re going to work with for a long time.”

Gillinson said that he thinks Ortiz’s work will resonate with Carnegie Hall’s audiences, too.

Unlike some contemporary composers, he said, with Ortiz’s work, “You don’t need to know the music when you arrive in the concert hall. When you hear the music, everybody’s grabbed emotionally by it and viscerally as well.”

Also as a part of her residency, Ortiz said she is excited to be writing new music for diverse new ensembles like the vocal group Roomful of Teeth and the Attacca Quartet, a rising young string quartet.

“I’m so grateful that I’m having these opportunities because I still have so many ideas, and I still want to communicate lots of things,” Ortiz said. “So, this is great that this is happening to me right now.”

And not just for her. “I think it’s important to show that something is happening in Latin America,” she said, adding that she hopes more venues like Carnegie Hall showcase classical music from Central and South America.