Composer Gabriela Ortiz has some myths about Mexican music to dispel

Boston Globe

a day ago

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That dream isn't so out of step with reality, she knows. Much of present-day Mexico City sits in the drained bed of ancient Lake Texcoco, which at one point covered over 2,000 square miles.
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'And now what we don't have is water in Mexico City,' she said, pointing out that her neighborhood sometimes has its running water cut off in times of drought. She has the resources to buy temporary water supplies, but not everyone does, she said. 'In terms of climate change, it's just there. I'm living it.'
Ortiz, 60, has had a prolific career so far. However, she only became widely known outside her home country in the late 2010s, when Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel commissioned a piece from her and started championing her music in earnest. The Boston Symphony Orchestra only played its first piece by Ortiz, 'Revolución diamantina,' this past spring. Coincidentally, that was just weeks after the piece was awarded a Grammy for best contemporary classical composition. When she arrived at the Tanglewood Music Center last week to direct this year's contemporary music festival, it marked her first visit to the BSO's summer home.
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Ortiz, who teaches at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, planned the festival with several clear priorities in mind. 'I really wanted to establish that Mexican music has a line that is important to Tanglewood,' said Ortiz, who planned one program featuring music by Mexican Symphonic Orchestra founder and educator Carlos Chávez, his student (and Ortiz's teacher) Mario Lavista, and Ortiz's own student Diana Syrse.
Though Tanglewood has hosted Latin American composers since its early days, such as Chávez, Silvestre Revueltas, and Juan Orrego-Salas, this FCM is probably the first time the Tanglewood programming has focused so intentionally on Latin American music, said TMC director Ed Gazouleas, who called Ortiz 'one of the greatest living composers of our time.'
In the United States, especially in areas with Mexican-American presence, Mexican concert music sometimes does show up on programs. But in Europe, 'you're asked, 'Who is Chávez? Who is Revueltas?,' Ortiz said. 'I'm talking really major Latin American composers, and people don't know them.'
She was also interested in collaborating with other Mexican artists, so the festival brought in the storied percussion quartet Tambuco, led by percussionist Eduardo Mata, who also studied under Chávez. 'Many of the instruments Chávez requests are pre-Columbian, and Tambuco is an authority on exactly the kind of sound Chávez was looking for,' Ortiz said.
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Ortiz grew up surrounded by Mexican folk music, as her parents cofounded the Latin American group Los Folkloristas less than a year after her birth. She often uses a wild variety of percussion instruments in her own scores, including several indigenous Mexican instruments. 'I like rhythm. I think it's part of our DNA as humans,' she said. 'In any Latin American folk music, the main components are coming from Europe, Africa, and the native people. So rhythm is something that is very strong.'
But though strong, it's not omnipresent, she said, pointing out her cello-voice-flute chamber piece 'Three Haikus,' which 'has nothing to do with rhythm. It's a totally different world. I have that voice as well.'
Ortiz often draws inspiration from current events, history, or the natural world; sometimes all three at once. 'Revolución diamantina' specifically was a reaction to feminist protests in Mexico in 2019 and 2020. She wasn't there personally, but during one protest in early 2020, when she was working in Los Angeles, she asked her Mexico-based Twitter followers to send her audio recordings from the protests. Some of these captured protesters chanting various slogans, which made it into the final score.
The cello concerto 'Dzonot,' written for Alisa Weilerstein, Dudamel, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and recorded on the recently released album 'Yanga,' was in turn inspired by the cenotes of the Yucatan Peninsula — deep sinkholes with spiritual significance to the Maya that continue to provide vital fresh water. These natural wonders too are increasingly threatened by environmental contamination, Ortiz said, especially as tourism and industrial agriculture increase in the region. 'It's really insane. There are no rules!' she said. 'What is going to happen in the future if we keep doing this?'
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Ortiz perhaps must be so exacting because she finds the world eager to pigeonhole her into a stereotype of 'Latin American music,' mariachi bands and fiestas, when in fact 'there's so many things happening' in Mexican music. 'I don't try to sound Mexican when I compose. What I have in mind is to discover my inner voice, and be honest. If something is related to Mexico, it's because I'm from Mexico and I live there, and those themes are closer to me.'
Rehearsing 'Three Haikus' later with a trio of TMC fellows and two faculty members, Ortiz advised the performers that her music is much more frequently 'rhythmic and extroverted,' but this wasn't the case in that piece, which was a 70th birthday gift for Lavista, her teacher. The first movement, which set expansive melismas of bass flute and voice over a cello drone, sounded nearly medieval.
Giving notes, she looked to the flutist. 'Please do this melody in a much freer way, when you don't have to play with anyone else,' she said. 'You have to be yourself there.'
A.Z. Madonna can be reached at