Darlene Castro Ortiz (b.1993) is a Mexican-American composer and classical guitarist based in Chicago. Her interest in music began at a young age with the violin, first in a youth mariachi band, then in a classical orchestra setting. Raised in a bilingual family, her creative interest mostly lies in sonification and creating sonic representations of non-musical objects, often using electronics, noise, and extended techniques. Her music draws most of its inspiration from trying to auralize processes or extra-musical objects in order to arrive at vivid, self-contained musical translations. These musical translations can sometimes be literal, other times more veiled and often use visual art, poetry, scientific processes, and active words as starting points.
Her music has been performed and commissioned by ensembles such as Spektral Quartet, the Runnin' Fl'UTES', Salty Cricket Composers Collective, PANTS (Wind Quintet), Nightingale Ensemble, the Salt Lake City Public Library's SHH! A Very Quiet Music Series, and Plena Libre.
She completed her Bachelors in music composition at the University of Utah and is currently working on her PhD in composition at the University of Chicago.
Darlene Castro Ortiz's Desire Paths premiered on April 16, 2022 with Fonema Consort.
Program notes:
“La Unica Poetisa Americana, Musa Dezima. Soror Juana Ines de la Cruz, Religiosa Professa en el monasterio de San Geronimo de la Imperial Cuidad de Mexico” So begins the 1682 print of poetry by the nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz in Colonial Mexico. Her work, though separated from me by centuries, is a labyrinth that I enjoy finding myself in. I often weave through her work, captivated by small gems of text that stand out among her prolific work, piecing together an image of who she might have been from these sometimes sensual, other times existential snippets of poetry. Desire paths are paths created as a consequence of erosion caused by human or animal foot traffic. The path usually represents the shortest or most easily navigated or newly desired route between an origin and destination. Likewise, I find myself forming my own small desires paths through Sor Juana’s work. This piece represents a reflection of some desire paths I’ve found myself returning to, both with her poetry and imagined sounds within which these words can live.