Carla Lucero - Part 8

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 120: Carla Lucero - Part 8

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 Carla Lucero about her advocacy work promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, the importance of authenticity, and upcoming performances and World Premieres of her operas. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Carla Lucero, check her out here: https://carlalucero.com/. This episode was originally recorded in February 2024.

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.
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1903729/15412974

Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Renata Volchinskaya, Sam Mason, Hannah Chen

Curious to hear a little music from our guest Ursula Kwong-Brown, who we spoke to in our most recent episode? Check out the world premiere of the piece she wrote for us, you can find it on our YouTube channel.

Chapters

• 0:38 In this week's episode, we continue our conversation with Carla Lucero, who we spoke to in February 2024.
• 0:46 You do a good deal of volunteer work promoting DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and mentoring young women, queer intersection, non binary and trans youth. Can you talk about your advocacy work? Is it an outgrowth or separate or related or, you know,
• 4:01 It's been very quiet. So I assume you don't have a dog or a cat?
• 5:35 Do you have any advice for young women, queer, non binary, trans or intersex composers or even emerging composers, in general, Latina composers, you know, pick pick your cohort, [or] advice in general.
• 6:49 Is there anything you have coming up that we haven't talked about, that you'd like to share with us or something recently that you've done that we haven't talked about?

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:00
[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists sponsored by a 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 Carla Lucero, who we spoke to in February 2024. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] You do a good deal of volunteer work promoting DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and mentoring young women, queer, intersex, non binary and trans youth. Can you talk about your advocacy work? Is it an outgrowth or separate or related, you know?

Carla Lucero  00:45
It's all part of the same soup. I think it's, you know, I...I think it's really I was raised, really believing that you have to give back. And you have to pay things forward. And, and volunteerism is very, very important. It was a very important part of my family too. So, you know, yeah, and they're extensions of, of myself, I'm, I'm queer, I'm not non binary, or, you know, I'm, I identify as she and her. But I feel that trans people are going through what I went through as a lesbian as a as a young lesbian, before, you know, it's become now a little more acceptable, depending on which state you're living in.

Nanette McGuinness  01:37
Right. [laughs]

Carla Lucero  01:40
But I feel that, you know, I like to go where I feel that I'm most needed. And with the Chicana Latina Foundation, that's, I actually just did a preview of one of new opera Chicanisima, and it's about a dear friend of mine, who is a very important Chicana leader, her name is Olga Talamante, you talk about a life. So I was commissioned to, to write an opera about her. And it just, we just had a preview of it. But so I used to, she used to be the executive director of Chicana Latina Foundation.

Nanette McGuinness  02:23
Okay.

Carla Lucero  02:24
That's a Foundation that gives scholarships to, to young, Latinas wanting to go to college, or they're already in college, they need help.

Nanette McGuinness  02:35
Right.

Carla Lucero  02:35
So a lot of them are undocumented. So a lot of them are Dreamers. So I've been involved with that organization for a while and the preview of our opera previewed at the at the was performed at the Gala, the Chicana Latina Foundation Gala. So all of those those scholarship recipients were there. I mean, another cry fest! Just just to see that and yeah, so, so yeah, there has to be some connection. To to how I'm feeling I'm also a huge animal lover. So that's another thing I didn't put it on my website! [laughs] but yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I love animals a lot too. So, yeah, so it's people, you know, the Latinx people, queer people, LGBTQ plus, and, and animals. Those are my three, three places that I like to give my time and money to.

Nanette McGuinness  03:43
That's special and important. It's been very quiet. So I assume you don't have a dog or a cat.

Carla Lucero  03:49
Oh my God. Let me tell you. We've got chickens in the backyard.

Nanette McGuinness  03:53
Ah, yes!

Carla Lucero  03:55
Right before I signed on, they were there was like Egg Call Central it was like cacophony. And I thought "Oh gosh, if this is going to add another flavor to this all together."

Nanette McGuinness  04:10
Definitely!

Carla Lucero  04:11
We have an indoor cat. And then we have two strays that we that live outside that we've they have heating pads boxes with heating pads.

Nanette McGuinness  04:20
Oh, that's sweet!

Carla Lucero  04:22
And they're so loving. So we're, you know...

Nanette McGuinness  04:26
That’s great. Yeah. The first house I owned came with its own little chicken coop and chickens. And we discovered that roosters don't only crow at dawn.

Carla Lucero  04:38
Oh gosh.

Nanette McGuinness  04:40
But we used to make deviled eggs for like grad student meetings and stuff. Because we had a big supply.

Carla Lucero  04:46
I love that and that you cannot get eggs like that in the store.

Nanette McGuinness  04:50
Yeah, it's true.

Carla Lucero  04:51
So incredible.

Nanette McGuinness  04:51
Oh my gosh, yes, roosters crow when ever they feel like it.

Carla Lucero  04:57
Yeah, that's why we don't have any we...

Nanette McGuinness  05:00
Smart.

Carla Lucero  05:00
Oh, I know, and it's so sad if you get one accidentally, there's, there's an organization here, thank God that we can give...

Nanette McGuinness  05:08
Oh, good!

Carla Lucero  05:10
They can roam around to their heart's for the rest of their lives.

Nanette McGuinness  05:13
And crow in somebody else's back yard!

Carla Lucero  05:16
To their heart's content, yeah! [laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  05:18
Right. Do you have any advice for young women, queer, non binary, trans or intersex composers or even emerging composers, in general, Latina composers, you know, pick pick your cohort, [or] advice in general.

Carla Lucero  05:33
I would say yeah, advice in general, is to seek out your own community and write authentically. Write from the heart because that is where the fire in your heart is going to give you the passion that you need to succeed. I think that there are a lot of people who are trying to chase something, like chase a style of music, or chase...be the next big, big thing or the new thing or whatever it is. That I mean, maybe that's authentic to some people, but I think that if you're writing from a place of authenticity, in terms of yourself, that you will succeed.

Nanette McGuinness  06:22
Yeah, those are good pieces of advice and finding your community is something that keeps coming up in these chats as well. Both of those things. Is there anything you have coming up that we haven't talked about, that you'd like to share with us or something recently that you've done that we haven't talked about?

Carla Lucero  06:40
Yeah, sure. Actually, the circles back to San Francisco. I've been commissioned by Opera parallele to, to create an opera: Hello, Star, that's a beautiful story. I, they they let me choose it. And I'm very, very excited. We really actually wanted to do The Giving Tree first.

Nanette McGuinness  07:03
Oh!

Carla Lucero  07:04
I love that story.

Nanette McGuinness  07:05
Yeah.

Carla Lucero  07:06
But, you know, getting the rights to that...

Nanette McGuinness  07:08
Getting the rights, that's the first thing I thought, yeah.

Carla Lucero  07:10
So I found something that was very similar in

Nanette McGuinness  07:12
ethos?

Carla Lucero  07:16
Yeah. And it's a beautiful story. So I actually am working with a librettist. He's amazing. His name's Jerrod Lee.

Nanette McGuinness  07:25
Okay.

Carla Lucero  07:26
So we're working, he's lives in...he's gonna kill me. New York or St. Louis.

Nanette McGuinness  07:36
[Laughs] Very similar places and near each other.

Carla Lucero  07:39
He's probably gonna kill me. He's probably gonna say "No, I live in Chicago."

Nanette McGuinness  07:42
Right, exactly.

Carla Lucero  07:43
Yeah. But he's, he's amazing. So I'm working with him remotely. And that's, Hello, Star is also going to premiere in 25.

Nanette McGuinness  07:53
Wow, it's gonna be a banner year for you.

Carla Lucero  07:55
Ooh, I mean, you're gonna find me and it's like the, the, some institution [laughs] There's one more...Hawaii Opera Theatre has commissioned me to create this piece called Tea.

Nanette McGuinness  08:17
T, or teeth? I'm sorry.

Carla Lucero  08:19
Tea. T E A.

Nanette McGuinness  08:20
Oh!

Carla Lucero  08:21
And it will be the second time I'm working with this, this librettist, Velina Hasu Houston. She is lovely. And you talk about, you know, we were talking about, you know, trusting having experience with no one.

Nanette McGuinness  08:35
Yeah.

Carla Lucero  08:35
It's exactly this situation. So she's this, this opera Tea is based on a play that she wrote in the 80s that has won millions of awards. It's been all over the world, been translated into different languages. And it's a story of five Japanese war brides.

Nanette McGuinness  08:35
Oh, wow.

Carla Lucero  08:36
Oh, my gosh, that I read the play and just freaked out. So that's, so that's coming up in 27.

Nanette McGuinness  09:09
A little more time, yeah.

Carla Lucero  09:12
Yeah, so that's basically what's happening. And I have a remount of something that's happening in LA. The Everywhere of Her. It's, it's an educational piece. And it was commissioned by The Ebell. Will Sherry Bell.

Nanette McGuinness  09:31
Okay.

Carla Lucero  09:31
So it was commissioned in...23? 22? Happened in 22, and now the remount is happening now in 24. It's going to travel a little. So those are the...that's what's happening.

Nanette McGuinness  09:45
That's a lot of nice things happening with a lot of nice groups. I really like what Opera Parallele does, and I've heard of Tea, but I haven't read it. So now I'll have to read it.

Carla Lucero  09:54
You have to read it. It's so good.

Nanette McGuinness  09:56
Yeah, yeah. So well, that's great. It doesn't sound like you're busy at all [laughs]

Carla Lucero  10:01
No, not at all. Not at all.

Nanette McGuinness  10:06
So, well, thank you again for having done such a wonderful chat. Such a wonderful conversation.

Carla Lucero  10:12
Well, thank you, Nanette. I've been looking forward to this and you're wonderful. Thank you.

Nanette McGuinness  10:17
Oh, thank you.

Nanette McGuinness  10:18
[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Carla Lucero, 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, or to make a tax-deductible donation, please visit us at 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 design by Brennan Stokes, with special thanks to co-producer and audio engineer Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]