Cristóbal MarYán is a Mexican composer whose work has taken him across continents and mediums. From writing his first piece at 12 to composing for film, theater and concert halls, his career has been shaped by an instinct to turn emotion into music.
By Myia Lela Hamed
There’s a feeling Cristóbal MarYán remembers from the first piece of music he ever wrote. It was not necessarily the piece itself that stayed with him, but the emotion behind it. “I remember writing my first piece and thinking I wanted to feel what I was feeling then for the rest of my life,” he says.
That desire to hold onto a feeling has followed MarYán throughout his career. Born in Mexico City, he began playing piano at eight and composing around 12. Since then, his relationship with music has evolved across countries and cultures, taking shape through diverse forms of storytelling.
His path took him from Mexico to Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi, later bringing him to New York and China.
“Different places have different music and different musical perspectives,” he says. “They all inform how I listen, write, and think about music.”
Each place has offered a different perspective on music, but MarYán does not describe his creative process as following a single formula. Instead, he relies on something less tangible.
“It really shifts from project to project,” he says. “But I would describe it as an intuition that tells me where to start.”
That intuition becomes especially important when he is composing for someone else’s story. Unlike a piece created entirely from his own ideas, film and theater require him to first understand another person’s vision. He must interpret the story, propose an approach, and then work with others to shape the music around it.
“When you compose something for someone else’s story, you must interpret that story, propose, and then collaborate with them to understand their vision,” he says. He enjoys both frameworks, finding something valuable in the freedom of composing independently as well as the collaboration that comes with working within someone else’s narrative.
One project pushed him toward a new understanding of what he could create. “Códex Mexica: Passion” made MarYán realize that he had “an appetite for large-scale forms of music.” The project, commissioned by the Orquesta de las Américas, tells the story of the fall of Tenochtitlan and the development of modern Mexican identity. It was later performed in concert by the Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México.
But some of his most personal work has come from a much smaller place: his own family.
For “La Mujer Callada: Aquelarre,” MarYán drew from a story written by his grandmother. The project gave him an opportunity to connect with someone he did not have much time to know while she was alive.
“It was both an exciting and an emotional experience,” he says. “In a sense, writing that piece was a way to connect with her.”
For MarYán, that connection between music and emotion extends beyond his own experiences. He sees music as something capable of reaching past the surface of an idea and directly into how someone feels.
“Music sometimes can override the superficial and go directly to the emotional core of a feeling,” he says.
When he writes about emotionally heavy subjects, he does not try to manufacture an emotion for his audience. Instead, he draws from something already within himself.
“I try to write music that communicates a feeling I already have in me about those topics,” he says.
Despite the many places and influences that have shaped him, MarYán still sees himself as part of the Western classical musical tradition. His work, however, has been influenced by the different musical traditions he has encountered throughout his life.
“I definitely see myself as an heir and part of the Western classical musical tradition, albeit heavily influenced by other musical traditions in that endeavor,” he says.
For MarYán, the work of a composer is not so distant from the work of a writer. Both are telling stories, only through different languages.
“People might not realize the work of a composer is very similar to that of a writer, only with notes,” he says.
And ultimately, MarYán does not want listeners to focus on understanding him. His goal is simpler, to create music that resonates with listeners and holds lasting value.
“More than understanding anything about me, I would hope for any listener to consider my music as great music and to want to make it part of their lives,” he says.
It is a fitting hope for someone whose relationship with composition began with wanting to preserve a feeling. Years later, MarYán is still trying to do the same thing.
Only now, he is giving those feelings to someone else.
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Cristóbal MarYán will be at AUS on Oct. 6 & 7. For more details on this and upcoming events, please check Engage Arts at AUS: https://www.aus.edu/life-at-aus/vibrant-cultural-offerings
