Gabriela Ortiz channels the rhythms of her native Mexico in classical music

Food trucks, Monte Albán and the Día de Los Muertos celebration are among the subjects that animate the music of Gabriela Oritz, an increasingly prominent voice on Mexico’s classical music scene. Just as Mexican film directors and visual artists have made inroads into American cultural life, Ortiz’s works have been presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Houston Symphony, New York Philharmonic and California’s Ojai Music Festival.

Chicago audiences might recall Ortiz from Episode 23 of CSO Sessions, which features her Denibée-Yucañana, a four-movement tribute to Rufino Tamayo, the Oaxaca-born painter who died in 1991 and whose work was strongly influenced by his Zapotec heritage, as well as European styles.

This season, the Civic Orchestra, under Principal Conductor Ken-David Masur, will perform Ortiz’s 2021 work titled Clara, a tribute to pianist-composer Clara Schumann (1819-1896), wife of the 19th century piano titan Robert, in concerts Oct. 27 (at Senn High School, 5900 N. Glenwood) and Oct. 28 (at Orchestra Hall).

In a program note, Ortiz observed, "I cannot begin to discuss Clara without first thanking Gustavo Dudamel for his generosity in having invited me to compose a work based on the relationship between two great artists: Clara Wieck Schumann [at left] and Robert Schumann. Thanks to him, I was able to delve into the broad legacy of both more deftly; especially that of Clara, who, in addition to being a splendid composer and one of the most important pianists of the 19th century, was the editor of her husband’s complete works, as well as a teacher, mother and wife.

Clara, which received its premiere in 1922 with Dudamel leading the New York Philharmonic (which commissioned the work), is divided into five parts that are played without interruption: Clara, Robert, My response, Robert’s subconscious and Always Clara.

Except for My response, each section consists of intimate sketches or imaginary outlines of the relationship between Clara and Robert. "My original idea was to transfer onto an ephemeral canvas the internal sounds of each one without attempting to illustrate or interpret, but simply voice and create, through my ear, the expressiveness and unique strength of their complex, but also fascinating personalities.

"Clara parts from the idea that music will grant us access to a non-linear conception of time that is more circular, where the past (them) and the present (me) can meet, converse and get to know one another. During these imaginary dialogues of a poetic and musical nature, an intimate diary began to grow in me filled with nuances, confessions,and internal contradictions that find in music their own reference, significance and internal coherence, expressing all that which cannot be read or explained, but rather must be heard.

"I like to think that through Clara, Clara Wieck Schumann is here, in this concert hall with us. In order to clearly identify these sections, I have employed two fundamental musical tools: a brief rhythmic sequence that appears constantly as a leitmotif or idée fixe, acting as a thread to guide me between the sections that correspond to Robert or Clara, and a melodic theme represented by the oboe that, in a more personal way, represents the latter’s private world. At the end of the piece, this leitmotif can be heard as breathing, leaving implicit the permanence and legacy of both figures."

In the work’s central part, My response, "I seek two objectives: first, to bring Clara and Robert into my own world, one of a rhythmic strength and color characteristic of my language, of the unique vitality born out of the entrails of the land I come from, and second, to explore a quote considered to be very controversial, in which Clara wrote: ’I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose —there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?’ "

Ortiz concludes her note with: “Throughout history, women have had to overcome major obstacles marked by gender differences. We have gradually unfolded within the musical arts with great difficulty. However, as is well known, there are many of us who have rebelled against these evident forms of injustice and struggled to gain recognition and a place in society. This piece represents an acknowledgement of Clara, a tribute to her, and my definitive, resounding response to her question. It also signals my gratitude to all the women who, in their time, challenged the society they were raised in by manifesting their artistic oeuvre.”

Back to Denibée-Yucañana. In this work, Ortiz aims to capture the light and contrasts in Tamayo’s painting of Monte Albán, a sprawling archaeological site on Oaxaca’s Cerro del Tigre or Tiger Mountain (“Denibée” in the Zapotec language).

“I remembered that the first time I was really in contact with Rufino was on a trip that I took when I was 10 years old,” Ortiz said. “My parents belonged to a very famous band named Los Folkloristas. They were touring in Europe at the time, and I was traveling with them. We went to this exhibition of Rufino Tamayo in Italy, and I was completely amazed at the use of color in Tamayo’s work.”

Scored for flute, double bass and percussion, Denibée-Yucañana incorporates an array of novel timbres and moments of high virtuosity. In parts of the first movement, a marimba player uses hands instead of mallets, while a Latin jazz groove underpins the second movement. The toccata-like finale features a plucked bass line and some dazzling flute pyrotechnics.

Like her compositional forebears, including Silvestre Revueltas and Carlos Chávez, Ortiz has a longstanding interest in pre-Columbian Mexico. Among her early breakthroughs was Altar de muertos, composed in 1997 for the Kronos Quartet and inspired by the traditional Día de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead celebration. A percussion concerto, Concierto Candela (1995), features the teponaztli, a drum from the Aztec civilization.

This ear for the folkloric was nurtured by a childhood piano teacher who introduced Ortiz to Bartók’s Mikrokosmos, a collection of piano pieces that mesh Eastern folk music and Western traditions. Ortiz went on to study composition at the National Conservatory of Music and the National Autonomous University of Mexico before pursuing additional training in London, where she earned a Ph.D. from the City University in 1996.

After returning to Mexico, Ortiz often faced the question of straddling cultures. “At the beginning it was a dilemma,” she said. “Do I want to sound more European or more Latin American? Now, it’s not a question anymore. I just do what I have to do, and if the [Latin] rhythm comes out in my music, it’s because it’s part of who I am.”

Urban landscapes appeal to Ortiz. Pico-Bite-Beat is inspired by Los Angeles’ innovative Mexican-American food scene, a landscape in which Korean chefs add kimchi to tacos and burritos are stuffed with pastrami. Musicians from the Los Angeles Philharmonic gave the work its premiere in 2018. The next year, Ortiz took on a daunting commission: a piece to be paired with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The result was Yanga, about an enslaved African prince who was shipped to Mexico in the 16th century, and who escaped to establish the first free town in the Americas. Dudamel conducted the L.A. Phil premiere, with a full chorus and the Mexican percussion quartet Tambuco.

Opera has been Ortiz’s favored outlet for challenging subjects, including migration and the drug trade. Her 2008 opera Only the Truth (Unicamente la Verdad) follows the fictional story of Camelia La Texana, a drug smuggler who murders her partner after he betrays her with another woman. The tale is based on a narcocorrido, a ballad style that centers on the exploits of drug barons, frequently steeped in urban myths. Only the Truth made waves with its use of Mexican folkloric styles, video design and allusions to tabloid journalism.

Though Ortiz is pleased by the growing awareness of Mexican repertoire, she sighs when her music occasionally turns up in “fiesta”-themed concerts, more evocative of margaritas and frivolities than the nuanced themes that fuel her imagination.

“This is the stereotype of Latin American composers,” she said. “But Latin American music is enormously wide in terms of its aesthetics. You could find people who write in a very nationalistic way, or people who have a very different aesthetic, influenced by European schools or technologies.

“Twenty-first century music shows us that we have so many different traditions and aesthetics and so many different ways to express ourselves.”