Browse Artists
Ortega, Fernando
Since the release of his Myrrh debut in 1997, Fernando Ortega has risen to critical and popular prominence as a singer-songwriter of immense sensitivity and charm. At the heart of his appeal is a complex combination rare in contemporary Christian music-Ortega is a storyteller, worship leader, artist and vocalist of unparalleled talent. As a vocalist, he has been described by critics as gifted, unusually engaging, and refreshingly original. As a worship leader, he has established himself as a champion of the classic hymns of the church, insisting that our praise needs to carefully balance experiential and theological reflection. And as a story-teller, Ortega has written and recorded songs that are both unnervingly intimate and universal in appeal, lifting listeners both into and beyond themselves, moving them into stark personal reflection, joyful adoration and praise.
More rare, however, than the combination of his talents is the thoughtfulness with which Ortega approaches his craft. Indeed, it's difficult to imagine a more focused, careful performer. Following in his family's long tradition of artistic excellence-born from a long line of New Mexican artisans and weavers-Ortega has emerged as one of the most articulate and gracious advocates of creative and spiritual renewal in Christian music. His concerts are unique excursions that balance contemplative worship; buoyant, sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking storytelling; and extraordinary musical performance-this year, for the first time, with a band. All of this is reflected-and perhaps even perfected-in Home, his third release for Myrrh, and the most musically and thematically aggressive collection of his career.
You see, this year Fernando Ortega and his wife Margee bought their first house. After years of apartment dwelling, the couple finally found themselves afforded the chance to bring to life the clich?of making a house into a home. In their move, however, the Ortegas discovered an extraordinary, bittersweet tension between the joy of making a home and the longing to be in it. Ortega's long stretches of touring-with the likes of Twila Paris and Michael Card-have meant extended absences from his new home, and in those absences, he came to a renewed sense of deep longing and restlessness that is intermingled with the glorious hope at the heart of our spiritual journey.
"I missed being home a lot this past year," says Ortega. "And so several of the songs reflect that, along with the recognition of God's goodness and kindness in giving me a place I can call 'home.'"
But Ortega's long absences from home have also had a much more direct effect on his music. For much of 1999, Fernando was able to tour extensively with a band for the first time in his career. The impact of that experience has been a more muscular, aggressive songwriting and recording process, one more reflective of the cohesion and collaboration that evolves on the road. Indeed, Home is easily the most musically diverse of his career (including a few songs that could be described as "toe-tappers"), and certainly the most accessible-there are songs for every grown-up radio format on Home.
To achieve that sound, Ortega and returning producer and friend John Andrew Schreiner went into the studio with some of the best studio players on the west coast (including such luminaries as Dean Parks, Tim Chandler, Jimmie Johnson, David Raven, Don Heffington, Stuart Duncan, Sixpence's Matt Slocum, and singers like Kelly Willard and Andrae Crouch alumnae Kristel Murden and Howard and Linda McCrary), and then recorded Home not in "parts," but as a band. While admittedly not the most economical process ("all that rehearsing!"), it allowed the songs to find a different kind of life and energy than on previous Ortega discs.
But Home will not alienate the legions that have become Ortega fans in the past three years. "I think this recording is a departure from This Bright Hour and The Breaking of the Dawn, but not a radical one," Ortega says. "There is still a narrative sense to the songs."
While all the songs hinge on the central metaphor of home-some were even recorded in Ortega's new home (if you listen closely on "Pass Me Not" you will hear the crickets in his yard)-this is not a concept album. Fernando didn't set out to write an extended meditation on home as metaphor in order to make a point. That's not his style. Rather, Ortega prefers to let any "pointing" happen organically, much like the creation of this disc.
In preparation, Ortega spent hours in the works of 18th Century poet George Herbert, whose sacred verse has influenced mystic verse and Protestant hymnody for 200 years. ("There's something of him in every song," says Fernando). He also spent some time with the music of legendary rock/soul/blues man Van Morrison, trying to understand the Irishman's ability to grapple with the deepest of sentiment in a style and language that is "accessible and dignified." The goal was, according to Ortega, to find a way to talk about the most important, intimate ideas in a way that would be evocative for the listener, "without being didactic and preachy."
"The challenge for any good songwriter is to make clear-eyed observations, and then to make them important to the listener," says Ortega. "If you try to tell someone how to feel, they will be confined by that. But if you make some observation about life, then tell it in a creative, but universal way, the song is then free to do what it will. It is the same for any kind of art, if it is going to ring true to the participants, and art is about truth."
This conviction to tell the truth is represented in Home's remarkable diversity of themes. Throughout the disc, from "This Good Day,"-a song that Ortega describes as the "the most light-hearted song I've had a hand in writing- sort of a celebration, "-to the wistful tones of "Old Girl"-a meditation on what might be going on behind the eyes of a homeless woman who was rummaging through the trash while Ortega was eating breakfast in a "little yuppie coffee shop"-Ortega's stories of homesickness, safety, love, hope, endurance, and grace during the unspeakable suffering of a loved-one are tied together by the thread of longing and hope for a home both earthly and heavenly.
The more obvious, earthy side of things is supplied by songs directly about Fernando and Margee's new home. "Lonely Road" is a classic homesick-on-the-road song that perfectly captures the yearning that one would feel after spending too many nights in a Comfort Inn.
"When I was in my twenties, I used to think that a life of concerts and traveling would be glamorous and romantic, but it's not really like that at 42. I absolutely love what I do, but the very best part of it is when I get to come home to Margee and our cozy little house."
On the emotional flip side of "Lonely Road" is "Prayer for Home," a blessing that was written by producer John Andrew Schreiner and Ortega's neighbor and frequent collaborator Elaine Rubenstein, as a gift for their new home. The song is, as the title suggests, a kind of prayer-in fact an old-fashioned blessing for peace and grace for a home and family, the kind that would be equally appropriate at a communion or a dining table. "In fact," Ortega injects, "a friend of mine told me that the song inspired his Thanksgiving prayer at the dinner table."
In these musical intimacies Ortega lets us into the hearth of his heart, and they serve as the perfect entr? into the more universal longings for home we share in our journey of faith. But beware: Ortega's faith is not the stuff of ease and magic-it is a plaintive, yearning declaration in the face of frailty and despair, a call to Christ to "hear my humble cry."
"I have known what it feels like to trust God, though I believe even that is a gift. The ability to trust Him doesn't come from within me," Ortega reflects. "I have also known what it is like to have my faith assailed, where emotion and intellect fail, and still God finds me there."
To unfold this theme, Home continues the Ortega tradition of reintroducing neglected hymnody to the contemporary listener with "Pass Me Not," an early 20th century revival hymn that Ortega was introduced to by Schreiner in the recording studio.
"It's not a hymn I grew up singing-but I like the perspective of it. This writer was not demanding anything of God, or claiming any rights. The words are humble and plaintive: 'Do not pass me by.'"
The record ends with "Give Me Jesus," an old African-American hymn that Ortega first encountered at a Maundy Thursday service focused on Christ's betrayal and the cross.
"The choir sang this song and it was devastating-maybe the most overwhelming thing I'd ever heard in a church" he remembers. "When I heard it that night, I caught a brief glimpse of the sufficiency of Christ, and how there is virtually nothing that I bring to my redemption - not my good works, not my dramatic testimony, not my music. For the believer, there is Christ, and Christ alone."
Visit Official Website.
More rare, however, than the combination of his talents is the thoughtfulness with which Ortega approaches his craft. Indeed, it's difficult to imagine a more focused, careful performer. Following in his family's long tradition of artistic excellence-born from a long line of New Mexican artisans and weavers-Ortega has emerged as one of the most articulate and gracious advocates of creative and spiritual renewal in Christian music. His concerts are unique excursions that balance contemplative worship; buoyant, sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking storytelling; and extraordinary musical performance-this year, for the first time, with a band. All of this is reflected-and perhaps even perfected-in Home, his third release for Myrrh, and the most musically and thematically aggressive collection of his career.
You see, this year Fernando Ortega and his wife Margee bought their first house. After years of apartment dwelling, the couple finally found themselves afforded the chance to bring to life the clich?of making a house into a home. In their move, however, the Ortegas discovered an extraordinary, bittersweet tension between the joy of making a home and the longing to be in it. Ortega's long stretches of touring-with the likes of Twila Paris and Michael Card-have meant extended absences from his new home, and in those absences, he came to a renewed sense of deep longing and restlessness that is intermingled with the glorious hope at the heart of our spiritual journey.
"I missed being home a lot this past year," says Ortega. "And so several of the songs reflect that, along with the recognition of God's goodness and kindness in giving me a place I can call 'home.'"
But Ortega's long absences from home have also had a much more direct effect on his music. For much of 1999, Fernando was able to tour extensively with a band for the first time in his career. The impact of that experience has been a more muscular, aggressive songwriting and recording process, one more reflective of the cohesion and collaboration that evolves on the road. Indeed, Home is easily the most musically diverse of his career (including a few songs that could be described as "toe-tappers"), and certainly the most accessible-there are songs for every grown-up radio format on Home.
To achieve that sound, Ortega and returning producer and friend John Andrew Schreiner went into the studio with some of the best studio players on the west coast (including such luminaries as Dean Parks, Tim Chandler, Jimmie Johnson, David Raven, Don Heffington, Stuart Duncan, Sixpence's Matt Slocum, and singers like Kelly Willard and Andrae Crouch alumnae Kristel Murden and Howard and Linda McCrary), and then recorded Home not in "parts," but as a band. While admittedly not the most economical process ("all that rehearsing!"), it allowed the songs to find a different kind of life and energy than on previous Ortega discs.
But Home will not alienate the legions that have become Ortega fans in the past three years. "I think this recording is a departure from This Bright Hour and The Breaking of the Dawn, but not a radical one," Ortega says. "There is still a narrative sense to the songs."
While all the songs hinge on the central metaphor of home-some were even recorded in Ortega's new home (if you listen closely on "Pass Me Not" you will hear the crickets in his yard)-this is not a concept album. Fernando didn't set out to write an extended meditation on home as metaphor in order to make a point. That's not his style. Rather, Ortega prefers to let any "pointing" happen organically, much like the creation of this disc.
In preparation, Ortega spent hours in the works of 18th Century poet George Herbert, whose sacred verse has influenced mystic verse and Protestant hymnody for 200 years. ("There's something of him in every song," says Fernando). He also spent some time with the music of legendary rock/soul/blues man Van Morrison, trying to understand the Irishman's ability to grapple with the deepest of sentiment in a style and language that is "accessible and dignified." The goal was, according to Ortega, to find a way to talk about the most important, intimate ideas in a way that would be evocative for the listener, "without being didactic and preachy."
"The challenge for any good songwriter is to make clear-eyed observations, and then to make them important to the listener," says Ortega. "If you try to tell someone how to feel, they will be confined by that. But if you make some observation about life, then tell it in a creative, but universal way, the song is then free to do what it will. It is the same for any kind of art, if it is going to ring true to the participants, and art is about truth."
This conviction to tell the truth is represented in Home's remarkable diversity of themes. Throughout the disc, from "This Good Day,"-a song that Ortega describes as the "the most light-hearted song I've had a hand in writing- sort of a celebration, "-to the wistful tones of "Old Girl"-a meditation on what might be going on behind the eyes of a homeless woman who was rummaging through the trash while Ortega was eating breakfast in a "little yuppie coffee shop"-Ortega's stories of homesickness, safety, love, hope, endurance, and grace during the unspeakable suffering of a loved-one are tied together by the thread of longing and hope for a home both earthly and heavenly.
The more obvious, earthy side of things is supplied by songs directly about Fernando and Margee's new home. "Lonely Road" is a classic homesick-on-the-road song that perfectly captures the yearning that one would feel after spending too many nights in a Comfort Inn.
"When I was in my twenties, I used to think that a life of concerts and traveling would be glamorous and romantic, but it's not really like that at 42. I absolutely love what I do, but the very best part of it is when I get to come home to Margee and our cozy little house."
On the emotional flip side of "Lonely Road" is "Prayer for Home," a blessing that was written by producer John Andrew Schreiner and Ortega's neighbor and frequent collaborator Elaine Rubenstein, as a gift for their new home. The song is, as the title suggests, a kind of prayer-in fact an old-fashioned blessing for peace and grace for a home and family, the kind that would be equally appropriate at a communion or a dining table. "In fact," Ortega injects, "a friend of mine told me that the song inspired his Thanksgiving prayer at the dinner table."
In these musical intimacies Ortega lets us into the hearth of his heart, and they serve as the perfect entr? into the more universal longings for home we share in our journey of faith. But beware: Ortega's faith is not the stuff of ease and magic-it is a plaintive, yearning declaration in the face of frailty and despair, a call to Christ to "hear my humble cry."
"I have known what it feels like to trust God, though I believe even that is a gift. The ability to trust Him doesn't come from within me," Ortega reflects. "I have also known what it is like to have my faith assailed, where emotion and intellect fail, and still God finds me there."
To unfold this theme, Home continues the Ortega tradition of reintroducing neglected hymnody to the contemporary listener with "Pass Me Not," an early 20th century revival hymn that Ortega was introduced to by Schreiner in the recording studio.
"It's not a hymn I grew up singing-but I like the perspective of it. This writer was not demanding anything of God, or claiming any rights. The words are humble and plaintive: 'Do not pass me by.'"
The record ends with "Give Me Jesus," an old African-American hymn that Ortega first encountered at a Maundy Thursday service focused on Christ's betrayal and the cross.
"The choir sang this song and it was devastating-maybe the most overwhelming thing I'd ever heard in a church" he remembers. "When I heard it that night, I caught a brief glimpse of the sufficiency of Christ, and how there is virtually nothing that I bring to my redemption - not my good works, not my dramatic testimony, not my music. For the believer, there is Christ, and Christ alone."
Visit Official Website.
Albums
-
Hymns and Meditations
Night of Your Return
This Bright Hour
The Breaking of the Dawn
Home
In a Welcome Field
Camino Largo
Storm
Hymns of Worship
Fernando Ortega
Beginnings - Disc 1
Beginnings - Disc 2