Tierra

The founding ideas for writing “Tierra” come from the collaboration and deep admiration of two big artists: James Drake, a North American painter, and his epic work “Can We Know the Sound of Forgiveness;” and Benjamin Sáenz Lira, a Mexican-American writer, poet, and activist, and his touching poem “Opus No. 1”.

To me, Art is a living manifestation that watches us, challenges us, and shows us the worst and the best of the society to which we belong. This is why I have always advocated for the possibility of collaborating, of creating bridges through the most diverse artistic expressions to talk about the issues we face as humanity.

In my piece “Tierra,” I tried just that: to interpret and respond to the works of two prime artists under the process of introspection and creative reflection to be able to provoke, enrich, and question the world we live in and, maybe, why not, move to another fairer and balanced society, forgetting about borders, walls, and racial and cultural distinctions that damage us so much as human beings.

The piece is divided into two parts. In the first part, I tried to make the music navigate through diverse moods, some of them telluric or obsessive, with a rhythmic counterpoint emulating the beating of the earth, interwoven with passages of more lyricism and harmonic color. In the second part, I only used the word “earth” to create a nourished polyphony of voices that are out of phase and develop little by little, creating a song of spirituality and hope for a better world.

— Gabriela Ortiz, 2022