The piece, a requiem or composition for the dead, incorporates the sounds of a full orchestra, 160-person choir, four soloists, a MIDI keyboard and field recordings. The libretto references verses written by Negr\u00f3n\u2019s favorite Puerto Rican poets, including Roque Raquel Salas Rivera.<\/p>\n
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While the piece carries a lot of existential weight, Negr\u00f3n was intentional about making it sound more meditative sonically. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to find a balance between making something that focused on light, but at the same time acknowledged our fault in all these losses that we\u2019ve had and \u2026 not ignoring that part of it, too,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The more than 30-minute long piece was commissioned by Dallas Symphony Orchestra conductor Fabio Luisi years ago. He said the piece also speaks more broadly to the universal idea of loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s touching us somehow through this calm pace. Nevertheless it has a force, it has something very energetic, but a little bit hidden behind the words,\u201d he said. Luisi said the meaning of the work \u201cis something we all feel in our life, what we have lost, what we miss.\u201d<\/p>\n
Negr\u00f3n said one of the challenges she faced in composing the piece was figuring out how to write about sonic loss without being as literal as having silence. She navigated around that by using field recordings, including some of Puerto Rico\u2019s Yunque rainforest and of the coqu\u00ed guaj\u00f3n, a rock frog native to Puerto Rico that\u2019s been endangered since 1997 due to habitat loss. <\/p>\n
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Angelica Negron emerges from the side stage applauding the musical talents represented within the ranks of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at the conclusion of DSO’s former composer-in-residence as she unveiled the world premier of a work for orchestra, chorus and vocalists in honor of the orchestra’s 125th anniversary, at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, on October 16, 2025. <\/p>\n
Steve Hamm \/ Special Contributor<\/p>\n
Biologist David Haskell and marine biologist Elliot Ma shared field recordings for the piece. Ma, an acoustic research assistant at the Wildlife Conservation Society, collected sounds around a wastewater treatment plant along the Hudson River. <\/p>\n
The quiet gurgling of water because of the absence of organisms, can be heard in the fourth movement of Negr\u00f3n\u2019s piece. <\/p>\n
\u201cTypically, I can find some fish noise or some snapping shrimp noise, depending on the site. But in that location, there was noticeably a lack of sound,\u201d Ma said. <\/p>\n
Ma said he\u2019s increasingly concerned about the rollback of conservation efforts. He hopes Negr\u00f3n\u2019s piece can help create awareness about loss of biodiversity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they\u2019re gone, they\u2019re gone. There\u2019s no reintroduction. You lose that animal and you lose the sounds it produces. It\u2019s very, very sad,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
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