Gabriela Ortiz: "When I returned to Mexico, I realized that my cultural background is very mixed."

The music of Gabriela Ortiz (Mexico City, 1964) beats to the rhythm of tradition and the avant-garde. It unites European classical training with the combined legacy of European and American music that has flowed through Mexico since the 16th century. And, daring by nature, she openly engages with different formats. A few weeks ago, she debuted as a guest composer at the Palau de la Música when the GIO Symphonia and Frames Percussion performed. Neon AltarThe cycle continues this Friday with the concert of the Cosmos Quartet and the flautist Alejandro Escuer, who will perform Exiles. Later on, various works by Gabriela Ortiz will be part of programs as diverse as those of the Attaca Quartet, Frames Percussion, pianist Noelia Rodiles, the Vallés Symphony Orchestra with trumpeter Pacho Flores, and violinist María Dueñas and pianist Aleksandr Malofeev. In addition, on March 21, the Cor de Cambra will premiere Bird Woman, a special commission from the Palacio de la Música in which Ortiz is inspired by Woman, bird and comet by Joan Miró.

How did you receive the proposal from the Palau de la Música?

— It was right here at the Palau last year that María Dueñas played my violin concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Mercedes Conde [the Palau de la Música's deputy artistic director] asked me if I'd like to be the guest composer.

And then they offered you a commissioned work for the Cor de Cambra, right?

— And I'm really excited about it because I love writing for voice.

Do the works you've chosen for this season describe who Gabriela Ortiz is in 2025?

— Yes. For example, there are Neon Altar, which is a work I wrote right after I finished my doctorate in England and returned to Mexico City. During those five years of absence, Mexico signed the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Canada, and a lot of American products began to enter. Suddenly, I found Mexico City extremely Americanized; it was like I was in a suburb of Houston. Then I visited my brother, who lives in Los Angeles, and it seemed more Mexican than Mexico City. That dichotomy, that reunion with my country, and that crossroads of cultures made me rethink my aesthetic. That's when I wrote Neon AltarBecause, on a trip to Chiapas, in a church, I found an altar with a neon light, Coca-Cola bottles, and copal, the incense used by the Chamules. The image is very contradictory, because you have the European influence with the indigenous peoples, plus the United States with a Coca-Cola bottle. I truly understood that my cultural background is very mixed.

Her husband, flutist Alejandro Escuer, will be participating in this Friday's concert. What's it like working with someone so close?

— It's wonderful. He's my husband, yes, but regardless of that, Alejandro is a great musician. He's worked hard on expanded techniques and has the flexibility to improvise. When you have a really good performer who understands your music very well, it's a great privilege.

The ballet Diamond Revolution (2023), with which she won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition, was born in the wake of the feminist protests in Mexico in 2019. Is it the work that consolidated her most committed discourse with social reality?

— I've worked extensively on these themes, although not in all of my work. Music is an abstract language, but that doesn't mean it doesn't express emotions. These emotions are nourished by your life experiences and fuel creativity. I had already worked with the poet Mónica Sánchez Escuer, my husband's sister, on the femicides on the border between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, but I wanted to delve much deeper. The opportunity arose to perform a ballet with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, and my brother, Rubén, suggested that the ballet's dramaturgy be about the Brillantina Revolution. This is what the revolt following the rape of a girl by police, a case that went unpunished, was called in Mexico. It was in 2019, and feminist groups took to the streets and reacted very violently. I understand them, because I have a 28-year-old daughter. If something like that happened to her, I don't know what I would do. Perhaps I would also express my despair because being in that position seems terrible to me. Juan Villoro, the writer, told me that in order to develop the dramaturgy of the ballet, he should speak with Cristina Rivera Garza, the writer who won the Pulitzer Prize [with Liliana's invincible summer, which explains the unsolved femicide of her sister in 1990 while she was studying architecture in Mexico]. And the ballet is this, an exploration of the different types of violence against women.

What is your best memory related to music?

— I grew up listening to folk music because my parents founded the group Los Folkloristas, whose goal at the time was to promote Latin American music, especially that of Mexico. Therefore, my first encounter with music was through Latin American folklore. But I also remember my uncles listening to The Beatles, and one day my father brought a small record ofAquarium (the song from the musical Hair!); fascinated me, Aquarium, I choreographed and danced... I also have a very fond memory of a symphony concert I went to with my father. It was by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eduardo Mata. They played The three-cornered hat by Manuel de Falla, and it was a revelation for me. It was also in a very beautiful location, an old colonial courtyard in the center of Mexico City.

And any experience you want to forget?

— I've sometimes had very unpleasant experiences, especially when I was young, with my first orchestral works. I don't want to mention the orchestra, obviously, but it happened in Mexico. You're young, they don't take you seriously, they think they're doing you a favor because if it's contemporary music, it'll be horrible... And it often happens that it's played very badly, and the attitude isn't the best. This is very hard for a composer, especially when you're young, because you think the mistake is yours, not theirs, that they're playing badly and don't want to understand what they're playing. I'd like to forget these kinds of experiences. And yes, I did have more than one.