Contemporary classical composer Gabriela Ortiz leads contingent of Mexican Grammy winners

Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz parlayed a beingness successful euphony into a breakout nighttime astatine the 68th Grammy Awards — winning 1 statuette successful her ain sanction and sharing 2 much for a task that has pushed her onto classical music’s planetary beforehand line.

Ortiz, 61, won the Grammy for champion modern classical creation for “Dzonot,” a cello concerto inspired by the cenotes of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula and written for cellist Alisa Weilerstein and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Carín León won successful the Música Mexicana class for “Palabra De To’s (Seca).” (Carín León/Facebook)

She was portion of a beardown Mexican showing astatine the Sunday ceremonies successful Los Angeles. Singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade won champion Latin popular medium for “Cancionera,” and Carín León won champion música mexicana medium for “Palabra De To’s (Seca).”

Ortiz’s “Dzonot” premiered successful Los Angeles successful 2024 and anchors the medium “Gabriela Ortiz: Yanga” which besides earned Grammys for champion classical compendium and champion choral performance. A joyous Ortiz was named arsenic the composer connected those 2 nominations, but the superior winners of those awards were the performers and producers.

“We won 3 Grammys with Yanga!!!!!!!” Ortiz wrote connected Instagram, calling the task “very adjacent to my heart” and adding, “It comes from my roots, from memory, and from a heavy content that euphony tin transportation history, dignity, and hope.”

Born successful Mexico City to musicians who were founding members of the people radical Los Folkloristas, Ortiz grew up playing charango (a tiny Andean lute‑like stringed instrument) and guitar.

Singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade won champion Latin popular medium for “Cancionera.” (Natalia Lafourcade/Facebook)

As a young adult, she pursued classical soft and creation studies with 2 salient Mexican composers: Mario Lavista astatine the National Conservatory of Music successful Mexico City and Federico Ibarra astatine the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

She aboriginal studied astatine the Guildhall School of Music and Drama successful London and earned a doctorate from City University of London, gathering a illustration that fuses performance tradition, electronics and multimedia.

She has been a composer-in-residence astatine Carnegie Hall, and presently is composer-in-residence astatine the Concertgebouw successful Amsterdam, the Philharmonia Orchestra successful London and the Palau de la Música Catalana successful Barcelona.

Gustavo Dudamel, euphony and creator manager of the L.A. Philharmonic and 1 of the world’s best‑known maestros, has called Ortiz “one of the astir talented composers successful the world.”

Ortiz, who is besides a prof of creation astatine UNAM successful Mexico City, has present been recognized for six Grammys.

In 2025, she won the best modern classical creation Grammy and shared successful 2 others for “Revolución diamantina,” a large-scale ballet people and the sanction of a 2024 medium with the L.A. Philharmonic and Dudamel — the archetypal afloat medium of her orchestral music.

With reports from El Universal, Excélsior and The Strad