If you watched the Grammy Awards this year, 2026, then you’ll have seen the response to the composer – the woman composer – sweeping up the contemporary classical section for the second year running. She has no fewer than six in total, Grammys and Latin Grammys, weaving her folkloristic roots and rigorous training into music that is loved and performed in all the great capitals of the world. She is the Mexican composer, Gabriela Ortiz.
She really didn’t have any choice about the folklore. Her parents were folk musicians who played in the Latin American folk ensemble Los Folkloristas, and so she grew up immersed in the Mexican vernacular and playing charango and guitar with them. But she was also learning classical piano — struggling to make a find a connection to Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, all those classical German composers. Until one day, she discovered Bartók and the way he infused his own Hungarian folk heritage into his music, and knew that she was not going to be a pianist. She wanted to compose.
Study followed, at some of Mexico and Europe’s most esteemed music schools, emerging with a doctorate from the City University in London in 1996. And she’s just been on the up and up ever since, with numerous awards that include membership of the uber-prestigious Colegio Nacional and the Bellas Artes Gold Medal. And then there are all those Grammys – one of which she won for this, her cello concerto, Dzonot of 2024.
I love this piece. It’s named after the underground caves of the Yucatan peninsula – deep sources of spirituality for the Mayan people. She creates such beautiful sound worlds and such shimmering textures – it’s like you’re hearing something that stretches right across cultures and backwards through time.
“Music has the power to enrich the spirit of human beings”, she says. “I believe music has the power to change lives and to change the soul”
Gabriela Ortiz (1964 –)
MUSIC: Cello Concerto "Dzonot" (1.Luz vertical)
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Los Angeles Philharmonic / Gustavo Dudamel
Presented by Anna Clyne
Written and produced by Charlotte Wilson for WMHT
