De ida y vuelta

In a pleasant chat over coffee in the traditional neighborhood of Coyoacán in Mexico City, my dear friend and great guitarist Jaime Marquez invited me to write a piece for two guitars. Shortly thereafter I went to live in Barcelona for a year for a sabbatical stay and there I was able to work on several commissions, including this new piece.

During that period, I thought a lot about the way in which the cultures of both Mexico and Spain were shaped and enriched and the way in which the two countries crossed paths in the early 16th century.

I understood that it is the awareness of the past that allows us to find the awareness of the future.

De Ida y Vuelta 1 in its version for flute and guitar metaphorically represents that crossing of cultures, two instruments whose dialogue allows me to generate a musical world interwoven with diverse materials, where two of my passions, both "flamenco" and "son Veracruzano", somehow manifest themselves in a subtle and personal way. A piece in the form of a triptych whose intermediate part is integrated by a dreamlike old novohispanic song joining the "Old and the New World".

The piece was written for the Identidade Project and was commissioned by Andrea González Caballero and Amalia Tortajada, whom I thank for their enthusiasm at all times to carry out this new musical adventure.

— Gabriela Ortiz