In Angélica Negrón's music, childlike wonder meets the pull of Puerto Rico

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/12/ [login to see] /in-angelica-negrons-music-childlike-wonder-meets-the-pull-of-puerto-rico
Angélica Negrón feels the push and pull of her native Puerto Rico. The purple-coiffed 42-year-old composer left her hometown of Carolina, just outside San Juan, 17 years ago and decamped to the hip Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. But even as her work is increasingly heard in concert halls across America, the island keeps calling her back — back to her family and friends, to the sounds of reggaeton, to the mountains, flowers and beaches, all of which flow through her concert music. It's a powerful attraction/resistance incongruity that informs how she moves in the world.

While Puerto Rico is fecund with natural beauty, Negrón says it's a tough place to live. The island has been pummeled by hurricanes in recent years, damaging its electricity grid and triggering an 11-month blackout, the longest in U.S. history. Economic oppression, along with the natural disasters, can make it hard for people from there to stay — and so longing for home is part of the culture of the Puerto Rican diaspora. You can hear it in works like Negrón's Sinfonía Isleña, a symphonic salute to Puerto Rico's flora and fauna, or the string quartet Marejada, which includes field recordings from Seven Seas Beach on the island's eastern tip.