Next up in Music Academy of the West’s expanding Mariposa Concert Series, the acclaimed, adventurous sextet known as yMusic heads to Hahn Hall on March 10. The group’s brave mission of championing new musical ideas and interacting with pop artists like Paul Simon, along with its “classical music” alignment, is reason enough to mark the calendar for the concert, which will include works collaboratively written by the group.But another reason is the chance to hear new music from one of the more intriguing young composers on the scene, Gabriella Smith, presenting her new 40-minute work, Aquatic Ecology, for live musicians and field recordings from around the natural world. In keeping with Smith’s signature musical and extra-musical interests — particularly an impassioned concern for the beauty and fragility of the climate-changed planet — the composer provides a dual forum for concert hall content and echoes of the natural earth.Gabriella Smith | Photo: CourtesyWe’ve been fortunate to hear Smith’s music on a few significant occasions in the 805. Most recently, her fascinating and texturally sweeping cello concerto Lost Coast was performed in its premiere weekend by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at The Granada Theatre in 2023. Two years earlier, her string quartet piece Carrot Revolution was a highlight of the Ojai Music Festival, in a program designed by John Adams. The same piece was performed by a Music Academy quartet at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art last summer.Both works stem from Smith’s blissfully unaligned but ever-curious idiomatic palette, which can run from Renaissance music through modernism and minimalism, artful pop and more, ultimately landing in a sound world all her own.Born in Berkeley in 1991, Smith studied at Curtis and Princeton and has become an in-demand composer. Among her upcoming commissions is a piece for the San Francisco Symphony, at the behest of conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. Salonen can be seen conducting her orchestral piece Tumbleweed Contrails at the Nobel Peace Prize celebration (watch it here).I opened a recent interview by asking Smith if I’d missed any local connections to date. “Unfortunately, not many,” she said. “I think it’s just been the premiere weekend of Lost Coast with L.A. Phil that you mention you attended. I would love to come back and do more.”Have you worked with yMusic in the past, and how do you view their mission and musical identity?Yes. This is my third piece for yMusic (previous pieces are Maré and Tessellations) and they’ve all become good friends of mine now. Their cellist Gabriel Cabezas is the cellist I wrote Lost Coast for, and who you saw play it in Santa Barbara with L.A. Phil. We met on our very first day of school at Curtis when I was 17 and he was 16 and have been friends ever since. He joined yMusic in 2014 and introduced me to the rest of the group.yMusic is six of the best musicians I’ve ever met — they’re all so creative and good at so many different things. I think a lot of that comes from their experience both collaborating with/being friends with composers like me, but also playing with rock musicians/singer-songwriters, e.g. Paul Simon, Jose Gonzales, etc. yMusic also writes their own music collaboratively as a group, which is quite unique and not something I’m aware of any other ensembles doing.yMusic | Photo: Max WangerOne thing I love about your music is its resistance to easy categorization or engagement in any particular school or ism. Hints of minimalism filter through, but only in passing, along with rhythms from various cultures, maybe an art pop sensibility at times, and other ideas. Do you have a sense of where your music fits into the context of contemporary music, or is that even a concern of yours?I very much agree with that, that it doesn’t fit into easy categorization. I remember noticing at an early age that so much of the music I loved didn’t fit into easy categorization either (Joni Mitchell, Björk, etc.), and I have such a diverse range of influences that it just happened naturally. I think my musical voice is specific enough where it comes out sounding like me no matter what.So, I really don’t have to think about styles or isms when I write music, which is incredibly liberating. Though I do sometimes think about referencing specific pieces/songs, e.g. Pérotin and The Who in Carrot Revolution.In the L.A. Phil–commissioned version of Lost Coast, I appreciated your innovative approach to dealing with the orchestral palate, in conjunction with the cello soloist. Rather than a typical structure-based program, you seem to work your way into the textual possibilities of that epic “instrument.” Does that come close to describing your approach, and were there extra musical messages you wanted to convey in that piece?Yes. A lot of the solo cello writing comes from my friendship with Gabe and having worked together so much over the last 15 years, and a lot of the orchestral writing comes from my process of recording as I write instead of starting with music notation.yMusic | Photo: Max WangerFor example, I wrote that piece by recording myself playing most of the string parts on violin, singing the wind and brass parts, banging on kitchen objects for the percussion parts — and only then transcribing to musical notation at the end of the process. I write a lot of music that way.Can you give me a short list of notable influences on your work? I’m guessing it’s a long and diverse list.In no particular order and leaving out many: Björk, Joni Mitchell, Bach, Pérotin, Byrd, Beethoven, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Ligeti, Bartók, Saariaho….Have your creative process and deep concern for nature and climate change always been linked? And is one of your goals to use music as a vehicle to promote change or at least environmental awareness?Yes. I’ve always loved hiking and backpacking. As a teenager, I spent five years volunteering on a songbird research project in Point Reyes. The field biologists I worked with there were my heroes, and I wanted to follow in their footsteps and become an ecologist. But at the same time, I loved music and was always writing music, and it eventually took over my life.My goal is not to create environmental awareness — I think everyone who comes to my concerts is already very aware of the climate crisis. The people who come already know we’re in a bad situation and they want to help, but most people either don’t know how, or feel despair that nothing can be done — or have been unfortunately misled by fossil-fuel company propaganda to only see climate action only as a sacrifice.My goal is to help people understand that none of us can do anything alone and the best way to make an impact is to do it as part of a community, and that being part of climate action with other people can be an incredibly fun and joyful experience. And music is so good at both of those things — bringing people together as a community, and helping people feel the things we need to feel — fear, anger, sadness, and also joy and drive and passion — in order to do the work we need to do.Are you happy with the way things have come together in your artistic life, and does it fulfill a vision of what you wanted to do as a composer?The thing that brings me the most joy in music is getting to work with my favorite collaborators again and again. It takes time to develop a musical relationship, and I feel so grateful that I have so many amazing musicians in my life who have become long-term collaborators and friends. It feels incredibly rewarding.More broadly speaking, I would like to figure out how to spend more time on climate action.Gabriella Smith | Photo: Courtesy ‘New York Times’yMusic | Photo: Max WangeryMusic | Photo: Max WangeryMusic | Photo: Max WangeryMusic and Gabriella Smith perform at Hahn Hall at the Music Academy of the West (1070 Fairway Rd.) on Monday, March 10, at 7:30 p.m. See musicacademy.org.