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At-A-Glance

Composed: 2019

Length: c. 18 minutes

Orchestration: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, percussion (crotales, cymbals, bass drum, maracas, claves, vibraphone, xylophone, snare drum, guiro, marimba], strings, mixed chorus, and percussion quartet (batas, ok6nkolo, it6teles, iya, djembe, rasp, guiro, wood boxes, shekere, jam block, crotales, caj6n, caxixi, drum set, claves, congas, bongos)

About this Piece

As the daughter of two founders of the group Los Folkloristas, Gabriela Ortiz grew up immersed in the sounds of Mexican vernacular music. Yet she was also highly trained at some of Mexico’s and Europe’s most esteemed music schools, ultimately obtaining a doctorate from London’s City University. The interaction of street and academy, of improvised traditional music and rigorous electronic formulas, has been crucial in much of her work.

Yanga originated when Alejandro Escuer, a Mexican flutist who has recorded an album of music by Ortiz, presented her with the idea of an opera about Gaspar Yanga. Yanga was the African-born leader of a band of formerly enslaved people who successfully resisted recapture by the Spanish in the early 17th century. They established the free town of San Lorenzo de los Negros, near Veracruz, renamed Yanga in 1932.

The Spanish playwright and critic Santiago Martín Bermúdez created a libretto for the prospective opera, which is still pending. When Ortiz received the commission for this piece, to be a companion to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and its “Ode to Joy,” she was at first uncertain about what text to use. Aware of the Yanga opera project, her friends Jan Karlin and Jeff von der Schmidt (founding directors of Southwest Chamber Music in Los Angeles) suggested something based on that Yanga’s inspirational story. Martín Bermúdez wrote a new poem for the text, to which Ortiz added traditional chant texts of Congo origin.

Yanga is divided into four rhythmic and slow contrasting sections,” Ortiz writes. “One of the most important features of the work is the use of African instruments that arrived in Latin America, such as the batás, guiros, shekeres, and cabasas, among others. My idea was to add the unique color of these instruments into a musical discourse from my imaginary sound world, without trying to directly emulate Afro-Latin American rhythms. The choir is often used rhythmically, creating various polyphonic textures and thus in dialogue with the solo percussion parts and the orchestra.

“To me, Yanga is a work about an immense expressive force that speaks of the greatness of humanity when in search of equality and the universal right to enjoy freedom to the fullest.” ―John Henken