Pianist to perform own work during concert with ProMusica

As a child in Caracas, Venezuela, Gabriela Montero learned to play the piano.

Even then, the pianistturned-composer was dreaming up her own notes.

“I think I’ve been composing, in a way, since I was a little girl,” said Montero, 48, in a recent phone interview from Barcelona, Spain, where she now lives.

“Everything I do, everything I see, everything I live has a soundtrack behind it,” she said. “I can’t separate my musical brain from who I am as a human being.”

This weekend, during two concerts at the Southern Theatre, the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra will debut Montero’s newest composition, “Babel.” The composer will serve as piano soloist on the piece.

ProMusica had long sought to collaborate with Montero, said music director David Danzmayr.

“She is a big name, and we knew that she had already written a piano concerto, so I was aware that she was into composing,” Danzmayr said.

A world traveler from an early age, Montero moved to the U.S. with her family when she was 8.

“I studied privately in Miami with a teacher who, unfortunately, was not the right person for me,” said Montero, who stopped playing altogether at 18.

Two years later, Montero returned to her instrument and relocated to London, where she studied at Royal Academy of Music from 1990 to 1995.

The roots of her eventual composing career can be traced to her habit of improvising while playing the piano.

“Improvisation is composing on the spot, but for me, it’s very, very linked,” Montero said. “When I compose, it means that I have more time. Then I can correct; I can ponder on what I want to say.”

In creating “Babel,” Montero had much to say.

The title of the work alludes to the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, a structure that languishes unfinished because of the Pianist Gabriela Montero will perform with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra this weekend and debut her new work, “Babel.” Who: ProMusica Chamber Orchestra with pianist and composer Gabriela Montero Where: Southern Theatre, 21 E. Main St. Showtimes: 5:30 p.m. Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday Contact: 614-464-0066; 1-800745-3000, www.ticketmaster. com Tickets: $15 to $55

differing languages of those tasked with constructing it.

“‘Babel’ is my story — my way to express the frustration I have felt all these years of speaking in a world where there is so much noise and there is so much incomprehension of what we are trying to say to each other,” Montero said.

The piece opens with Montero alone on piano, and then the orchestra joins in — “at times against me, at times with me,” she said.

“After a big kind of absurd laughter and combination of all kinds of tongues speaking at the same time in the different instruments, then we come together on one final chord,” said Montero, who hopes that the work will promote a coming-together among people.

Montero will do double duty in this weekend’s concerts: Prior to playing “Babel,” she will join the orchestra to perform Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 14.” (The orchestra will also perform Ludwig van Beethoven’s unfinished “Symphony No. 10” and “Symphony No. 8”

on its own.)

Although the differences between playing a classical masterwork and a work of her own creation may seem vast, Montero enjoys the extra responsibility.

“I wear so many different hats that it’s just what I do,” Montero said. “I don’t see it as a challenge; I just see it as like changing my dress.”

For those wondering whether Montero will improvise during her piece or Mozart’s, the answer is no — but those in attendance might want to stick around after the final round of applause.

“My piece is totally written-out,” Montero said. “The improvisations will be the encores.”