For Good Measure

Angélica Negrón - Part 1

October 10, 2022 Ensemble for These Times Episode 19
For Good Measure
Angélica Negrón - Part 1
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For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 19: Angélica Negrón (part 1) 

Looking for a way to listen to diverse creators and to support equity in the arts? Tune in weekly to For Good Measure!

In this week’s episode, we talk to Angélica Negrón about finding her identity as a composer/performer and discovering her unique compositional voice. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Angélica Negrón, check her out here: www.angelicanegron.com . Parts of this episode originally premiered on November, 2021, found on Youtube, click here.

This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors, like you. Want to support For Good Measure and E4TT? Make a tax-deductible donation or sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the podcast!


Intro music: “Trifolium” by Gabriela Ortiz, performed by E4TT (Ilana Blumberg, violin; Abigail Monroe, cello; Margaret Halbig, piano),  as part of “Below the Surface: Music by Women Composers,” January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Alchemy,” October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.

Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Roziht Edwards and Merve Tokar

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Nanette McGuinness:

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists sponsored by grant from the California Arts Council. I'm Nanette McGuinness, artistic executive director of Ensemble For These Times. In this week's episode, we continue our conversation with by Angélica Negrón, who we spoke to in November 2021. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] Thanks so much for making the time to talk to us. You started out on a number of instruments and have said, "I didn't even know you could write new music." Could you tell us about your path to becoming a composer.

Angélica Negrón:

I started playing piano when I was young, around seven. And I would mostly play the songs from Disney musicals like Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and a little bit of classical but just mostly those Disney tunes. And then I started playing violin i i started the Conservatory of Music and Puerto Rico, which is where I was born and raised. And I played in orchestras my whole life and I was loved the violin, but never saw myself as a concert violinist. But I just kept doing it because I really loved music. But I was really curious about the sounds around me in the environment, also really curious about the other instruments in the orchestra. But I just didn't know what that meant for me. I, I always played music by that white men. And even though I obviously had a love for that music, and I enjoyed playing it, there was always this kind of missing piece that my curiosity as a, as a person was not was not really being fulfilled in the music I was making. So I started playing music in bands, mostly very active in the in the DIY scene in San Juan in Puerto Rico, and started making my own music while I was also studying violin. And then around that same time I started studying fill, and the University of Puerto Rico that's where I met a lot of my, my friends that I was making music with. And through films, I discovered film music and then through film music, I discovered the music of living composers at the same time also, I was listening to a lot of band a can records Kronos Quartet just a lot of discoveries of things that were really important for, for me as an artist. And, and through that I I realized that there were limited people making music and that my curiosity for the sounds around me and for other instruments did not mean that I just wasn't sure what instrument I wanted to play and that I was lost as a as a performer. But mostly that what I wanted to do was to write for all these instruments. And, and also, at the same time found out that there was composition department in the conservatory was very small. It was all male at that time. So I joined the composition department and switched from violin to composing. And yeah, and that was it. I kind of never looked back after that.

Nanette McGuinness:

You work with a fascinating range of instruments from Toy pianos accordions and robotics, to music boxes of arenas and vegetables, experimenting with sound using simple but intricate means and small childlike tampers. Can you talk about where you get your inspiration from and your compositional process?

Angélica Negrón:

I'm really inspired by whatever is around me, my family, my friends, my students, people I don't know. Nature, sounds from nature, and how they're connected to a specific place and memory and time. I'm also really inspired by comedy. And sounds from really everywhere. Domestic sounds from my apartment, my kitchen. The way a specific person laughs the way someone talks. It really could be anything that sparks an idea. I do have a kind of special interest or I'm really drawn to, to an unconventional some maker and also objects from childhood, like music boxes, toys. And more than anything, I feel like that's, that's a connection to, to not only nostalgia, but there's also a sense of irreverence that is inherent in those objects and those instruments. And I'm really interested in in tapping into that and, and in a way accessing another side of them, and playing with what happens when we take these sort of mundane objects, or, or objects that a lot of their identity relies, and not being professional, and then put them in a professional setting, and what happens when they overlap with more traditional instruments. And also all the possibilities for manipulating sounds and taking a sound that could have very specific associations to someone. But then what happens if I take out an important part of the sound like the attack, for example, and leave the resonance, and what transformations can come out of that my compositional process is very visual, I often start with an image, it could be something very specific, like a painting a word. But it could also be just a texture or color, or, or feeling just something pretty, pretty evocative in my head, that can then start the process of, of capturing ideas and developing them in a way that feels satisfying to me, I, I then almost always collect sounds either from the environment or from my house, or are samples from other pieces that I've written in the past and create a sound library for for this specific piece and then start playing around with those sounds. So I almost always have the pieces electronics, I'm always almost always starting with the electronics and playing around with manipulating and processing those sounds and seeing what the sounds want to do in this piece. And, and then from there, it's a pretty intuitive and organic process in which I'm just following my ears and trying to not think so much about theory, or chord progressions or, or rhythm in an in an intellectual way and more more following my intuition. And, and writing something that that I'd like to hear.

Nanette McGuinness:

Live performance is a major part of your practice. And you found in two very different bands alone, and Arturo and el barco. How do your compositional and performing practices inform and help each other? Or do they live in separate worlds? For you?

Angélica Negrón:

That's a really good question. I think for a long time, I kept those worlds separate. And that did not feel right. I was making music with balloon. And I was writing very different kinds of missing for the concert hall. And very purposefully separated those worlds. And I would say about 12 years ago, I started not caring so much about that and about putting things in separate containers and just being more fluid and, and embracing the fatality of FOIA and the certain artists as my true self and and that was really liberating. So I right now don't think about those six those distinctions. They they pretty much all live together in the same part of my brain and and also what I do in balloon which is collaborative because I'm making music with my best friends. It's also a really big part of the work I write for chamber ensembles and orchestras and the work I write for myself to play solo using plants or vegetables. It's It's all I think, combined and, and infiltrates sometimes in ways that I don't even realize until I have some distance with the music and then come back to it and then and then I'm gonna go that clarinet part is actually I don't know something that not I would play. Nora who plays Quattron bass in balloon. That's something that Nora could play in a balloon song and come up with that. So I think I think my experience in those bands has been really formative and really influential in my in my other compositions for other people.

Nanette McGuinness:

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Angélica Negrón for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT Our concert season online and in the Bay Area where to make a tax deductible donation, please visit us at www.E4TT.org. This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors like you. "For Good Measure" is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times, and designed by Brennan Stokes. With special thanks to audio engineer extraordinaire Stephanie Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]

You started out on a number of instruments and have said, “...I didn’t even know you could write new music.” Could you tell us about your path to becoming a composer?
You work with a fascinating range of instruments, from toy pianos, accordions and robotics to music boxes, ocarinas, and vegetables, experimenting with sound using simple but intricate means and small, childlike timbres. Can you talk about where you get..
Live performance is a major part of your practice, and you’ve founded two very different bands, Balun and Arturo en el barco. How do your compositional and performing practices inform and help each other, or do they live in separate worlds for you?