FEATURE FOCUS Edna Longoria NOVEMBER 11, 2025

WHAT IS FEATURE FOCUS

Feature Focus is a bold new multi-year initiative celebrating creativity, collaboration, and community.

Each season, Feature Focus will welcome world-renowned composers, performers, and artists - from music and dance to visual arts and beyond - for immersive multi-day residencies filled with new creations, inspiring performances, and meaningful connections.

And Feature Focus extends far beyond the concert hall. Guest artists will engage with local schools, colleges, and universities through workshops, classes, and open conversations, offering students of all ages the rare opportunity to learn directly from some of today’s most visionary voices in the arts. With Feature Focus, we invite the entire community to discover the joy, curiosity, and inspiration that the arts bring to our lives.

Edna Alejandra Longoria

Edna Alejandra Longoria is a Mexican-American composer born in McAllen, Texas, and raised in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico. She holds a Master of Music in Composition from the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach, and a Bachelor of Music in Composition from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Edna draws inspiration from her Latin heritage as well as minimalist and classical traditions. Her works have premiered across the United States, Mexico, South America, Canada, and Europe.

Recent highlights include Cuatro ritmos, selected as one of the winners of E4TT’s 2025 Call for Scores; participation in the 2024 EarShot Readings organized by the American Composers Orchestra; winning SOLI Chamber Ensemble’s 30x30x30 Call for Scores in 2024; and receiving the 2024 Vibrant Shores Prize for her piece El Bailongo. Earlier honors include being named a winner of the 2019 LunArt Festival Call for Scores for Danzas Cautivas, and receiving the San Antonio NALAC Grant Award (2020) and the San Antonio Performing Arts Grant Award (2019).

In addition to concert music, Longoria is passionate about composing for film. Her scores have earned multiple accolades, including “Best Music Score” at the Chandler International Film Festival, “Best Original Score” at the Vegas Movie Awards, and “Best Soundtrack” at the New York International Film Awards.

Adriana Verdié

Adriana Verdié de Vas-Romero received a master's degree in composition, summa cum laude, in 1997 from California State University, Long Beach, where she was elected Outstanding Graduate for the College of the Arts. In 2003, Dr. Verdié joined the theory/composition faculty at CSULB after receiving a Ph.D. in composition from the University of California, Berkeley. She also holds degrees in choral conducting and music education from the University of Cuyo in Argentina, where she was also the Outstanding Graduate for the Music Department, and an active conductor, theory instructor, composer, and arranger.

Gabriela Ortiz

Born to a musical family in Mexico City, Gabriela Ortiz has always felt she didn’t choose music—music chose her. Her parents were founding members of Los Folkloristas, a renowned ensemble dedicated to performing Latin American folk music. While playing charango and guitar with her parents’ group, she was also learning classical piano. Her formal studies began under esteemed Mexican composers Mario Lavista, Federico Ibarra, and Daniel Catán. Later, she continued her studies in Europe, earning a master’s degree at Guildhall School of Music and Drama under the guidance of Robert Saxton, and a doctorate in composition and electronic music from London’s City University under the guidance of Simon Emmerson.

Arturo Márquez

Arturo Márquez was born in Alamos, Sonora, Mexico in 1950. He began his musical training in La Puente, California in 1966, later studying piano and music theory at the Conservatory of Music of Mexico and composition at the Taller de Composici6n of the Institute of Fine Arts of Mexico with such composers as Joaquin Gutierrez Heras, Hector Quintanar, and Federico Ibarra. He also studied in Paris privately with Jacques Casterede, and at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton Subotnick, Stephen Mosko, Mel Powell, and James Newton.