LENOX, MA – Amidst the whirlwind of activity last weekend at Tanglewood, it would have been easy to miss another, wholly separate festival taking place on the Tanglewood grounds. Since 1964, Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary Music has been an important showcase for new and contemporary music, performed by the young fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center in venues such as Seiji Ozawa Hall and the new Linde Center for Music and Learning. For much of its history, “contemporary music” at Tanglewood was narrowly-defined as cerebral music written by older, Eurocentric white men: Elliott Carter, Charles Wuorinen, John Harbison, Oliver Knussen, etc. (If you wanted to hear Steve Reich, Terry Riley, or any of the Bang on a Can composers, you had to go to BOAC’s Loud Weekend up in North Adams.) The FCM has hosted several major events, such as the U.S. premiere of George Benjamin’s opera Written on Skin in 2013, or his follow-up Lessons in Love and Violence in 2022. But, despite the fact that all FCM concerts are free and open to the public, most Tanglewood attendees tend to slide right by on their way to the Shed.
But in recent years, the FCM has opened its doors to a wider spectrum of composers, including African-Americans, women and Latin Americans – the latter two groups well-represented by this year’s FCM director, Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz. Oritz, 60, has been one of the most visible composers over the past three decades, thanks to high profile positions such as last season’s Debs Composer-In-Residence at Carnegie and the advocacy of such high-profile maestros as Gustavo Dudamel. (An all-Ortiz album Dudamel recorded last year with the LA Phil won three Grammy awards.) A native of Mexico City, Ortiz grew up surrounded by both classical and traditional music – she studied in Paris and London after growing up with parents who performed Mexican folk music – with elements of both featuring prominently in her music.
“My music always has this rhythmic side,” Ortiz says in a profile by John Henken in the FCM program, “even though I don’t want to sit in this little pigeonhole of Latin American fiesta rhythm – I can have that, but I need other things as well.”
Over the course of six concerts, no fewer than fifteen of Ortiz’ compositions were performed (not including La Calaca (“The Skull”) for string orchestra, which appeared on Sunday’s BSO concert.) Selections included everything from music for string and percussion quartets, to vocal and orchestral music. I was only able to make it to half of those programs, but what stood out to me throughout was the freshness and vitality of her music, filled with propulsive rhythm and catchy hooks. The insistent repetition in some of Ortiz’ music comes dangerously close to banality, but somehow she always manages to pull it back from the brink with flights of ecstatic resolution. Highlights included her string quartets Exilios (2013, with flute) and Altar de Muertos (1997) which she wrote for the Kronos Quartet, as well as 2014’s Liquid Borders for percussion quartet, performed here by Mexican group Tambuco.
Throughout the five-day festival, Ortiz made it a priority to program music by her fellow Mexicans, including her mentor Mario Lavista, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and Arturo Marquez. (“Why is it always that Europe is the one dictating the future of music?” she told the Times’ Javier Fernandez last year. “We have amazing composers in Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica and Mexico. But nobody knows about it.”)
Ortiz also programmed a healthy amount of music by women composers, starting with her protégée Diana Syrse, who performed as vocalist on her own Mi Canto (2019/2025). American women were also prominently featured with several works, including evocative music for string quartet and orchestra by Gabriella Smith (Carrot Revolution, 2015; Bioluminescence Chaconne, 2019) and Ellen Reid (West Coast Sky Forever, 2021; When the World as You’ve Known It Doesn’t Exist, 2019). While all of these women write from different places and influences, they share in common a boldness and directness that has too often been in scant supply here. If Ortiz and her successors at the Festival of Contemporary Music have anything to do with it, the days of willful avoidance of new music at Tanglewood are numbered.
You can hear the BSO’s performance of Ortiz’ La Calaca here; more pics on Instagram.