Gabriela Ortiz was born in Mexico City, Mexico, on December 20, 1964. The first performance of Kauyumari took place at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, on October 9, 2021, with Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Kauyumari is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, two tenor trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, seed pod, rattle, claves, jawbone, tambourine, metal güiro, sistrum, tam-tam, suspended cymbal, xylophone, glockenspiel, bass drum, snare drum, shaker, log drum, bongos, harp, and strings. Approximate performance time is seven minutes.

Mexican composer and educator Gabriela Ortiz experienced a rich and diverse musical upbringing and education. Ortiz’s parents were founding musicians of Los Folkloristas, an ensemble formed in 1966, and dedicated to traditional music of Mexico and Latin America. Gabriela Ortiz studied at the National Conservatory of Music and National University of Mexico, as well as The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and The City University of London. At the latter institution, Gabriela Ortiz completed her Ph.D. studies in electroacoustic music composition. Ortiz teaches composition at the Mexican University of Mexico City.

Among the Huichol people of Mexico, Kauyumari means “blue deer.” The blue deer represents a spiritual guide, one that is transformed through an extended pilgrimage into a hallucinogenic cactus called peyote. It allows the Huichol to communicate with their ancestors, do their bidding, and take on their role as guardians of the planet. Each year, these Native Mexicans embark on a symbolic journey to “hunt” the blue deer, making offerings in gratitude for having been granted access to the invisible world, through which they also are able to heal the wounds of the soul.

When I received the commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic to compose a piece that would reflect on our return to the stage following the pandemic, I immediately thought of the blue deer and its power to enter the world of the intangible as akin to a celebration of the reopening of live music. Specifically, I thought of a Huichol melody sung by the De La Cruz family—dedicated to recording ancestral folklore—that I used for the final movement of my piece, Altar de Muertos (Altar of the Dead), commissioned by the Kronos String Quartet in 1997. I used this material within the orchestral context and elaborated on the construction and progressive development of the melody and its accompaniment in such a way that it would symbolize the blue deer. This in turn was transformed into an orchestral texture which gradually evolves into a complex rhythm pattern, to such a degree that the melody itself becomes unrecognizable (the imaginary effect of peyote and our awareness of the invisible realm), giving rise to a choral wind section while maintaining an incisive rhythmic accompaniment as a form of reassurance that the world will naturally follow its course.

While composing this piece, I noted once again how music has the power to grant us access to the intangible; healing our wounds and binding us to what can only be expressed through sound. Although life is filled with interruptions, Kauyumari is a comprehension and celebration of the fact that each of these rifts is also a new beginning.

— Gabriela Ortiz

Program notes by Ken Meltzer