Pablo Ortiz was first trained in his native Buenos Aires, where he received a degree from the Universidad Catolica Argentina. At 27, he moved to New York to study at Columbia University. At present, he is Professor of Composition at the University of California, Davis. He taught composition and was co-director of the Electronic Music Studio at the University of Pittsburgh from 1990 to 1994.

Among those who have performed his compositions are the Buenos Aires Philarmonic, the Arditti String Quartet, the Ensemble Contrechamps of Geneva, Music Mobile, Continuum, the Helsinki Cello Ensemble, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the Theatre of Voices. His music has been heard at international festivals in Salzburg (Aspekte), Geneva (Extasis), Strasbourg (Musica), Havana, Frankfurt, Zurich, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Mexico City.

He was a fellow at the Composers’ Conference at Wellesley College in 1986 and 1988, and was commissioned by the Fromm Foundation in 1992. In 1993, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1996 he received the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1997 and 1998,

Ortiz was commissioned two chamber operas, Parodia and Una voz en el viento, by the Centro Experimental Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. In 1999 he received a commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation to write a piece, Raya en el mar, for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. In  2000 he received a grant from Fideicomiso para la cultura Mexico-US to write children's songs based on poems by Francisco Alarcon, renowned Chicano poet and Mission artist.

Recently, the Gerbode Foundation commissioned Ortiz to write a piece for Chanticleer and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, premiered in March 2004. A new CD including this and other works has just been released by Albany Records.  His works include chamber and solo music, vocal, orchestral, and electronic compositions, and music for plays and films.