Ortiz: Revolución diamantina
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Violin concerto, Altar de cuerda, available May 10, 2024.
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Full album available on streaming services June 7, 2024.
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Recorded live at Walt Disney Concert Hall in October 2022 and November 2023.
Revolución diamantina is the first full album of orchestral works by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz. As the composer for some of the most intense and arresting music of our time, Ortiz’s work unites disparate worlds and lives through a compelling rhythmic drive, a street-born authenticity, and a vivid sense of color.
Performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, this new album includes three works: Altar de cuerda, Ortiz’s new violin concerto performed by María Dueñas; the striking Kauyumari; and the epic Revolución diamantina featuring the Los Angeles Master Chorale.
In Altar de cuerda, Ortiz blends tradition and the modern world in an imaginary architecture of Mayan civilization and art deco. Part of the composer’s Altars series, it was written for Andalusian violinist María Dueñas, a frequent collaborator with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Kauyumari was commissioned to reflect on the return to the stage following the global disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic. This complex study of melody, accompaniment, and rhythm explores life’s interruptions while serving as, in the composer describes words, “a comprehension and celebration of the fact that each of these rifts is also a new beginning.”
Revolución diamantina is a powerful new ballet score, inspired by Mexico’s 2019 “Glitter Revolution,” the feminist uprising around the country’s epidemic of violence against women. The increase in femicide was a catalyst for this mobilization – and the name stems from an event during which protesters threw pink glitter at Mexico City’s chief of police, denouncing the department’s lack of response following the rape of a woman by local officers.
“Gabriela Ortiz’s music speaks to both the body and the spirit, full of visceral primeval rhythms and mysterious, soulful sound-worlds,” says Gustavo Dudamel. “It has long been a dream of mine to dedicate an album entirely to her music. And now … we have made that dream a reality.”
Featured Artists:
Altar de cuerda
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Gustavo Dudamel, Music & Artistic Director
María Dueñas, violin
Kauyumari
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Gustavo Dudamel, Music & Artistic Director
Revolución diamantina
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Gustavo Dudamel, Music & Artistic Director
Cristina Rivera Garza, scenarist (Revolución diamantina)
Los Angeles Master Chorale
Grant Gershon, Artistic Director
Jenny Wong, Associate Artistic Director
Track Listing
Altar de cuerda
I. Morisco chilango
II. Canto abierto
III. Maya déco
Kauyumari
Revolución diamantina
Act I: The sounds cats make
Act II: We don't love each other
Act III: Borders and bodies
Act IV: Speaking the unspeakable
Act V: Pink glitter
Act VI: Todas
About the Composer:
Latin Grammy-nominated Gabriela Ortiz is one of the foremost composers in Mexico today, and one of the most vibrant musicians emerging in 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, frequently refined and always personal ways. Her compositions are credited for being both entertaining and immediate as well as profound and sophisticated; she achieves a balance between highly organized structure and improvisatory spontaneity.
Her music has been commissioned and played by renowned soloists, conductors, major ensembles and orchestras such as: Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel and Esa-Pekka Salonen, Zoltan Kocsis, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Alondra de la Parra, Kroumata and Amadinda Percussion Ensembles, Kronos Quartet, Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Quartet, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, The Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra, The Malmo Symphony Orchestra, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Dawn Upshaw, Sarah Leonard, Alejandro Escuer, Pierre Amoyal, among others. Recent premieres include: Yanga and Téenek (both pieces commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel), Luciérnaga (her third opera, commissioned and produced by the National University of Mexico), Únicamente la Verdad (her first opera) with Long Beach Opera and Opera de Bellas Artes in Mexico. She has also collaborated with practically every orchestra, conductor, soloist, and ensemble in Mexico.
Born in Mexico City, her parents were musicians in the famous folk music ensemble Los Folkloristas, founded in 1966 to preserve and record the traditional music of Mexico and Latin America. She trained with the eminent composer Mario Lavista at the National Conservatory of Music and Federico Ibarra at the National University of Mexico. In 1990, she was awarded the British Council Fellowship to study in London with Robert Saxton at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 1992, she received the University of Mexico Scholarship to complete Ph.D. studies in electroacoustic music composition with Simon Emmerson at The City University in London.
She currently teaches composition at the Mexican University of Mexico City and as a visiting faculty at Indiana University.