Sí Se Puede

By Jorge Sosa

“Rocola” is a musical homage to Mexico City. One of my favorite things to do when I lived in Mexico was hang out at one of the many gorgeous cantinas downtown, sip tequila, and indulge in deep conversations about life, art, the present, and the future. I miss those days. Most of the old cantinas have a “Rocola” or “jukebox,” where patrons can spend their pesos requesting their favorite tunes. Musical styles from various ages, and regions co-inhabit in these magical music boxes, which flood the space with sound, memories, and emotions. The three movements in the work allude to popular styles from three distinct eras, and are a type of musical journey through the popular urban musical styles from the 1930’s and through the end of the Twentieth Century.

By Marina López

For this piece, I interviewed various Mexican immigrants about their first experiences with snow, and use their answers as the basic motivic (a la 'Different Trains,’ by Steve Reich) & formal structure of my piece. I also made the musical diagram mimic snowflake patterns. Back home, snow can only be found at the top of mountains and volcanos. But that snow, unreachable, mysterious, and the snow that drowns the streets of Boston during winter, is indistinguishable. Through focusing on this fact, I wish to reflect upon our shared migration experience, the things that bond us, and the things that make us unique. Item description

By Leaha María Villarreal

My chosen family has embarked on a journey these past few years to embrace the ways being Mexican-American has shaped our childhoods and what we remember, as well as identify the stories that are in danger of being lost. Redlining and intergenerational wealth are huge issues in many marginalized communities, and ours is no exception. My family's memories are anchored by the area we grew up in: the next neighborhood over from California’s East Los Angeles enclave where the previous generation resided and where they were forced out due to eminent domain. This excerpt is informed by stories of moving from East Los Angeles (specifically, the Maravilla area) to Montebello from the perspective of my godmother. Her story, and the stories of the other women in my family, are nothing short of maravilla, meaning wonderful. The use of these stories offers a space in which an electro-acoustic environment can support the narrative.

By J. Andrés Ballesteros

I propose to write a piece based on Gloria Anzaldúa’s Coyolxauhqui imperative, itself rooted in Aztec mythology.

There are several versions of the Aztec creation myth, but one of the most well-known ones involves the goddess Coyolxauhqui and her 400 brothers (the Centzon Huitznahuas) rebelling against their mother Coatlicue and her younger brother Huitzilopochtli. Her rebellion fails, and she is beheaded and dismembered, her body thrown in pieces down a mountain. Huitzilopochtli threw her head into the sky, where it became the moon, while her rebellious brothers joined her as the stars. In some versions, Coatlicue and Huitzilopochtli require constant worship and occasional sacrifices to continue protecting the earth from the rebellious siblings.

Queer feminist Chicana activist Gloria Anzaldúa wrote extensively about her experience living on the borders and edges of cultures, where ideas and identities mix in unexpected ways. In one essay, she explains our struggle between desconocimiento, a deliberate ignorance of past pains and fears, and conocimiento, “the more difficult path” of facing our wounds and accepting them. This continuing journey of fragmentation and integration reminded her of the myth of Coyolxauhqui, how she was torn to pieces and then returned in the sky, how the narrative tore her to shreds which were represented together again on stonework in ancient Tenochtitlan. “The Coyolxauhqui imperative,” she writes, “is an ongoing process of making and unmaking. There is never any resolution, just the process of healing.”

To be Mexican-American is to live in multiple worlds simultaneously, to have roots in many places but too often to be questioned in them. It is to live with a fragmented identity that you constantly reinvent and adapt. It is, Gloria Anzaldúa might say, to live with Coyolxauhqui imperative.

I would like to explore this imperative with the Victory Players. The materials that form the musical identity of the piece will be structured in a way that allows each musician to fragment their material and explore it before coming back together into something new.

By Cody Criswell-Badillo

My proposal for Victory Players is a piece inspired by the songs my grandfather Mencho and his brothers would sing from their youth as Tejano child migrant farm workers. My grandfather never liked to talk about his childhood, but I vividly remember hiding in the hallway outside of my grandmother’s sewing room and listening to the Badillo brothers play and sing their hearts out. The songs were equal part folk music from the lower border (corridos), Conjunto music, Mariachi and Ranchera songs from classic Mexican cinema, American classic country music, and early Rock n Roll which came together to express the complexity of Tejano identity. By using the Pierrot ensemble to evoke the growl of the bajo sexto, the reedy-ness of the button accordion, the overdrive of an electric guitar, and the distant cry of a steel guitar I aim to explore the liminal space between American and Mexican identity and its lingering effect on subsequent generations of working class Mexican-Americans adrift between two cultures.

By Felipe Pérez SantiagoMy proposal for this piece would be a one movement composition mostly based on rhythmical patterns and steady pulse, creating a piece of a lot of strength and power. I have always liked very rhythmical and fast music; my work is very much influenced by diverse styles such as Balcan music, heavy metal, progressive rock, Mexican sones, Spanish flamenco, Arab music, minimalism, and many other musical tendencies based on rhythm and pulse, and I would like to keep on exploring these possibilities in my writing. I certainly believe the “Pierrot Ensemble” instrumentation is ideal for these kinds of compositions, and I would definitely love to explore a piece with these characteristics with your ensemble.