Born to a musical family in Mexico City, Gabriela Ortiz has always felt she didn’t choose music—music chose her. Her parents were founding members of Los Folkloristas, a renowned ensemble dedicated to performing Latin American folk music. While playing charango and guitar with her parents’ group, she was also learning classical piano. Her formal studies began under esteemed Mexican composers Mario Lavista, Federico Ibarra, and Daniel Catán. Later, she continued her studies in Europe, earning a master’s degree at Guild Hall School of Music and Drama under the guidance of Robert Saxton, and earning a doctorate in composition and electronic music from London’s City University under the guidance of Simon Emmerson.

Ortiz’s music incorporates seemingly disparate musical worlds, from traditional and popular idioms to avant-garde techniques and multimedia works. This is, perhaps, the most salient characteristic of her oeuvre: an ingenious merging of distinct sonic worlds. While Ortiz continues to draw inspiration from Mexican subjects, she is interested in composing music that speaks to international audiences.

A landmark achievement in her career came in 2025 when her portrait album Revolución diamantina, recorded by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, won three GRAMMY Awards, including Best Contemporary Classical Composition for the title track. This historic recognition solidified her as a leading voice in contemporary classical music.

From massive works for orchestra and chorus such as Yanga (2019), concertos as Fractalis (2022), politically charged operas as Only the Truth (2008), magical chamber works as Altar de muertos (1997), and intimate solo pieces as Canto a Hanna (2005), Ortiz’s music reveals a sophisticated compositional technique and a meticulous attention to rhythm and timbre. Her work has been performed by prestigious orchestras and ensembles such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, New York Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra.

Ortiz’s many accolades include the 2022 Bellas Artes Gold Medal, Mexico’s National Prize for Arts and Literature, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright-García Robles Fellowship, and two Latin GRAMMY nominations. She is a member of the Academy of the Arts and has been inducted into El Colegio Nacional, Mexico’s most esteemed circle of intellectuals.

Ortiz is currently composer-in-residence at Carnegie Hall, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, and the Curtis Institute of Music. She also teaches composition at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. Her music is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

Biography written with contribution from Ana Alonso Minutti