Gabriela Ortiz
composer
“Gabriela is one of the most talented composers in the world. Not only in Mexico, not only in our continent — in the world.”
— Gustavo Dudamel
Biography
Gabriela Ortiz is one of the most vibrant musicians emerging on the international scene. Her musical language achieves an extraordinary and expressive synthesis of tradition and the avant-garde, combining high art, folk music, and jazz in novel, refined, and personal ways.
Unicamente la Verdad!, Ortiz's video opera created in collaboration with video artist Ruben Ortiz Torres, has received critical acclaim in Bloomington, Indiana; the Mexico City Festival and Long Beach, California. Recent orchestral commissions include Hominum for the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, Yanga for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Antropolis for the Louisiana Symphony Orchestra.
Her recent opera, Luciérnaga (Firefly), for solo soprano, premiered in 2018 at the Vertice festival. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra recorded and performed her work Hominum in Fall of 2018. In fall of 2019, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel, and the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble performed the world premiere of Yanga; The New World Symphony presented Hominum; and the LA Phil presented the UK premiere of Téenek - Ivenciones de territorio in their London tour. Upcoming commissions include collaborations with the Orchestre symphonique de Bretagne and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
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Selected works
Reviews
“Gabriela is one of the most talented composers in the world. [...] She has an ability to bring colors, to bring rhythm [and] harmonies that connect with you. That is something beautiful, something unique.”
— Gustavo Dudamel,
November 2019
“[...] this terrific new piece [Yanga] further advances the promise of a dynamic, vital fusion of Latin American and European music.”
— Richard S. Ginell,
October 2019
“Ortiz has a slow, atmospheric and harmonically arresting introduction, though a brief one, before her rhythmically compelling evocation of Yanga, an operatic hero if there ever was one.”
— Mark Swed,
October 2019
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