Majel Connery: Hey, everybody, this is your host, Majel Connery. And before we do anything, I want to give you a quick heads up that this episode contains a couple bad words. All right. Here we go.
Angelica Negron: I think as a Latina, that's like barely five feet when I'm walking in, I know, like I know what a lot of people are thinking - and that and I'm not even saying negative things - I'm just saying like even like, oh, you know, this 4'11'' with purple hair.
[Theme Music starts: “We Need a Room,” Sky Creature]
Majel Connery: From CapRadio, this is A Music of Their Own, an interview podcast about women in music. We hear stories of survival and perseverance, and we explore why being a woman in music is so different from being a man. All the women I interview here are extraordinary because they are making it. And as a woman in music myself, I want to understand what they are doing that's different. That makes them stand out. I'm your host, Majel Connery. And in this first season, we're meeting women in classical music where the number of men vastly exceeds the number of women. This is A Music of Their Own from CapRadio. We'll be right back.
[Theme Music ends: “We Need a Room,” Sky Creature]
Majel Connery: Welcome back. My guest on this episode is Angelica Negron, a composer and multi-instrumentalist who's been commissioned by The Bang on a Can All-Stars and Kronos Quartet and has premiered with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, Opera, Philadelphia, L.A. Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic. She's also a founding member of the band Balun and performed with them on NPR's Tiny Desk.
[Music starts and fades under narration: “Ruta Panoramica for Cello, Bandoneon and Electronics”]
Majel Connery: When you are a composer of classical music today, one of the coolest things you can possibly do is get a commission from an orchestra. When this happens, you've kind of hit the big time. But orchestras are very high stakes, and there's not much room for error. It's like, you got to know how to ride the bike before you even try. I asked Angelica to describe what it was like for her to learn not just how to get by in this environment, but also how to still be herself when it's so high visibility. How does she deal with what the orchestras expect from her and how does she know what to expect from herself? By the way, in what follows when Angelika refers to coming from the island, she's talking about Puerto Rico, where she grew up.
[Music starts and fades out: “Ruta Panoramica for Cello, Bandoneon and Electronics”]
Angelica Negron: It feels more like it needs to be something that's proven to work before because there's no time to experiment or try new things because time is money and it's not like I can be. Oh, let's actually try this chord in the woodwinds now instead of there's no time for that. So yeah. And I think as a Latina, that's like barely five feet when I'm walking in. I know like I know what a lot of people are thinking and that and I'm not even saying negative things. I'm just saying like, even like, oh, you know, this 4' 11'' with purple hair because there's so much of like, did you really mean this? Like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Already imagine that I screwed up the pardon. It's transposed when an incident or whatever.
Majel Connery: It feels like the difference between getting dressed up to go to a fancy dinner with a friend versus getting dressed up to meet the queen or something. Like, you really can't afford to screw it up. Yeah. And once you're there, you can't just go to the bathroom and put something else.
Angelica Negron: Exactly. And you made the commitment. You chose to wear that, and you have to own it. I could. Oh, this metaphor is good. I guess. Was going to say maybe there's like you went to the bathroom, maybe there's toilet paper stuck in your shoe, but it's still you know, you have to...
Majel Connery: You got to show up. It's got to be right the first time. There's no going back.
Angelica Negron: Exactly. So and I've gotten better about it. I think what's actually helped me is in my teaching. A big part of it is mentoring this young kids. And a lot of them are girls.
Majel Connery: And you're talking about this program where you're a teaching artist with the New York Philharmonic. It's called the Young Composers Program. And you're mentoring really young kids in some cases.
Angelica Negron: Exactly. I'm the one telling them like, no, you are the boss. Because a lot of the time in this program, they're putting in front of the New York Phil, 10, 11 year olds, some telling them things that I'm not applying to myself. So that's been really kind of revealing and like, oh, I need to walk the walk with that the expression, yeah, yeah.
Majel Connery: You have to model the behavior you expect me to adopt.
Angelica Negron: Exactly. And I had an experience not long ago in which I was just accompanying a student. She was commissioned to write this orchestral overture for a concert. And I was in the rehearsal, just kind of like to be there for her. She did not need me. And I was introduced to the conductor during the break and he was on his phone when someone was introducing me to him and tell him that she's she's the the teachers that mentored this composer. She's been she's a brilliant composer. She's been commissioned by dah dah, like and I'm in my brain. I'm like, this person does not care and I don't care that he cares. But he was on his phone the whole time. They're not looking me in the eye. At any point. And I think a few years ago that would have stayed with me. What I was preoccupied with in that moment was how I acted in front of my students and the conversation that we had on the train, like when we were walking back. So the train just was white, which was Did you see what just happened? Notice that that's the thing. How do we deal with that? Like, how do you you pick your battles, you know? In that case, I was not like, I'm not the person to be like, hey, I'm important. Look at me. It's just noticing those things. Because when that person then will be in charge of conducting your music or programming, your music or whatever the power dynamics are that has to do with your music, then those things will come out in one way or another. And that's when it matters, when they have a lot of 30 minutes of rehearsal time for your new piece. But they played once and it sounds okay and it's an easy piece. It's all in for four. We can move on to the Brahms. You can be like, No, actually, let's go back to Measure 15 and let's try that again. It's not inviting the people. That's like the bare minimum. It's how you treat them when they're there and what support systems you put in place from the basic things of guest artist that's coming to work with an orchestra to work with and in some organization to the time you give them to rehearsal and the donors you put them in front of and and the situations you put them in. All of that is super important for an artist to want to come back to do those things. And I hope it doesn't come across as this way of like it's for the next generation. I have to do this, you know, like they have this debt or like this obligation, you know, which I feel like I do, but it's not the main reason that I should do something, I think. I mean, I should do it for myself because I am there for a reason. And I deserve the same respect that other white male composers that are invited in those spaces have.
[Music starts: “Doabin”]
Majel Connery: You're hearing a section of "Doabin" from the album Old Fires Catch Old Buildings, played by Loadbang Ensemble. At the beginning of this piece, there's a quiet recording of a pair of twins who invented their own little language. And then you can hear the ensemble pick up the musicality of this language and repeat it back as music.
[Music up: “Doabin”]
Majel Connery: Angelica is fascinated with childhood, and that fascination yields compositional tools that she can use. Here, the act of looking back becomes a repetitive loop like a memory. The secret meaning of these children's chatter is closed off to us as adults. But Angelica engages with that world creatively by enacting a musical dialog between childhood and adulthood.
[Music up and then underneath narration: “Doabin”]
Majel Connery: Angelica and I next dove into a paradox. So we've heard her refer to her physical, petite-ness and her purple hair and the fact that people can sometimes find her cute. This is complicated by the fact that her music could be called cute because Angelica uses childhood as a compositional tool. She does a lot with toy instruments and has a gentle musical aesthetic. So taken all together, she can give the impression of being a small, cute woman, writing small, cute things. And on one hand, this seems totally infantilizing, but on the other, it's what she does and does well. So the paradox here is, does she lean into this? Is it okay as a woman to make music that could be called cute or is that reinforcing a bad stereotype?
Angelica Negron: Oh, I struggle with this a lot. Since Balun has been a thing and my voice also is very airy and in the context of Balun has been said childlike a bunch of times. And then I also look this way and also use these tools and this instruments that exist in this kind of visual esthetic. And that all together could be very much like me falling into my own trap of like of the cute thing, and I have to work against it.
Majel Connery: Do you?
Angelica Negron: Well, that's the thing. Is that I. I feel like I have to, but I don't know if I do.
Majel Connery: What would be risks for you just in every single context, be exactly who you are?
Angelica Negron: There's part of me that is like, Yeah, this is me. Great. Feels right. But there's another part of me is like, come on, you're.
Majel Connery: Getting a little tougher. What do you think you lack? Is it authority? Is it height? Is it like. Oh.
Angelica Negron: Well, I do think authority is a big thing for me. And, and I mean, it's all the things that are pretty gendered too. But I think also if you add on to that, the Latina player, it's just the cultural thing of like always asking for permission, apologizing when you don't need to.
Majel Connery: Mm hmm. Okay. I want to ask you I want to ask you about your voice. And I'm I'm I'm like, for some reason, I'm nervous to bring this up because I feel like this might even be, like, a hurtful place for you to go. Or maybe not. Hopefully not. But like, your Tiny Desk concert with Balun is super neat. I love that. I hope you feel positive about it. You are giving me a face.
Angelica Negron: Thank you. I feel very positive about everything in that concert except for my voice.
Majel Connery: Okay, so.
Angelica Negron: No, but let's talk about it because I love talking about these things that I talk about that with my close friends, too.
Majel Connery: So there are a bunch of people in the comments who are like, Why did she sing so quiet? I wish the singer would sing a little bit louder. And I was just like, But that's your decision. And it's your voice. That's who you are. That's what you sound like. So. Yeah.
Angelica Negron: So. Oh, there's so much there. My voice is pretty quiet and does not project so well. So I really struggle with how to project and still sound like myself because I don't sound like myself when I'm projecting with no mic over.
Majel Connery: Or.
Angelica Negron: Six people behind me playing and Tiny Desk is tough because we're not going to say no to that. And also, we're not going to be like when they said no mics, like, you know, it's what it is.
Majel Connery: Right. So at some point then, I mean, you must have seen it eventually online.
Angelica Negron: Someone asked me to share the Tiny Desk and I sent them the link and I made the mistake of looking at the comments and I started reading. And I have like a not not a nervous breakdown, but I just felt so shitty, like, in a way I've never felt before. And I knew that I should have stopped, but I just kept looking. And then some people were saying, like, Oh, you know what? She's actually a great composer, like, daring to defend me with my composing career and was like, you know, I appreciate that. But I was like, No, no. I mean, I also feel like I sound terrible. And, you know, as someone that stepping out of my self, I don't feel like I sound good in that it's something. And I think if someone said something really shitty about my about a piece I wrote, I don't think I would take it that bad. I think it's something with like the deepest insecurity in me was just my voice and also the fact that it's a really personal thing because it's you like your thighs or or if you have something in your body, you know, that you don't like and then they go after that one thing, right? This is the thing to like, the one thing I've done that has the most visibility because on the platform but then is the one thing I'm not proud of and what I did and not again in this conversation, but in my life, is this whole thing about their resilience to that is connected to Puerto Ricans a lot too. And like how they're how resilient they are, like, let's keep throwing things at them, you know, which is also very much like and I see in my family to my mother is this cultural thing, but also this matriarchal thing and this woman and this can keep taking check and somehow still put on makeup and and smile.
Majel Connery: Stay with us for more of my conversation with Angelica Negron. We'll be right back.
Majel Connery: This is A Music of Their Own from CapRadio. I'm Majel Connery.
[Music starts: “El Espanto”]
Majel Connery: This is from the album Prisma Tropical by Angelica's band Balun. And the track is called "El Espanto." We just talked about Angelica's voice and whether it's too quiet. I think this track is an interesting test of this question. For me, the song strikes a balance. There's a lot of activity in the ensemble, and then there's this cool distance in the voice. I think it's the right move because if there was a heavy dominating voice on this song, it would compete with the rest of the track. Angelica sings the way that you would want a sensitive instrumentalist to play. She knows her role in the ensemble. She knows how to step forward. And she knows how to step back to allow the music to be about the music and not about her.
[Music up and fades out under narration: “El Espanto”]
Majel Connery: This last part of my conversation with Angelica is about a really interesting aspect of her childhood, and it also has an explanatory power in terms of how she writes today. Angelica grew up in the presence of drag queens, and she saw a lot of living room drag as a very young kid. Drag is about the difference between who we appear to be and who we really are and what power, if any, we have to manipulate the difference, which is what we've been talking about in this episode. So I wanted to know whether Angelica sees the work of drag, the renegotiation of outside versus inside in her own work. In what follows, we talk in passing about a mini-film opera Angelica wrote called "The Island We Made." It was a commission from Opera Philadelphia and featured the singer Eliza Bagg and the drag queen Sasha Velour.
Angelica Negron: It was local shows and houses. I wasn't going to clubs when I was eight. It was mostly these very low key hands in someone's house in which they would clear some furniture and then turn it into a runway. And then I would see these people that were, you know, just kind of part of my family in a way. And the drag that I was exposed to at that age was mostly like impersonating Latina, the US and Puerto Rican icons. So a lot of looping them on any of them aside early on like this kind of icon of culture. And for me it was more about this kind of hyper accretion larger than life on stage, which the stage was just a living room and a house, but still this kind of larger than life iteration of this person and this side of that person that really came to life. My culture is inherently melodramatic and I grew up on telenovelas, you know? So what's something cooler than watching telenovelas? Like actually experiencing those people in a living room, like standing right in front of you? Of course, there's, like, exaggerated makeup, the jewels and everything bedazzled. And I mean, it's also why I love telenovelas. It's because a lot of the time it's like, what? This is completely absurd. But at the same time, it's like there is something there that resonates and rings very true or that, you know, like you have an aunt that kind of does this messed up thing, you know, but you never talk about it. So I think there's, there's this appeal to like something that's very specific that happens in family and people that are close to you that you know. But then it's exaggerated and a point that then gives you permission to laugh to it and also makes you know that other people see it so that it doesn't feel so much like a secret anymore. Or maybe something that, you know, I don't know, like something that you just don't talk about. It's again, I was not not unpacking this when I was eight this way. But I think there's definitely something in that, like, oh, yeah, like, you know, these things are pretty funny, but when we're in Thanksgiving, maybe we're not laughing, we're just sitting in uncomfortable silence. But then seeing that highlighted and in some dark performances, then it's like, Oh, yeah, that's pretty funny.
Majel Connery: Yeah, that's super interesting. I mean, I was going to ask you, what do you think it is about hyperbole and over-the-top ness that is so important to drag? Like, what is the thing that is being debated there? Or what is the reality that's being asserted there? And I think you just said basically, like, there are some things that you can't just say in normal life. The only way to say them is by over saying and then they get articulated in this way. That's like there's levity to it and it allows people to laugh. And then it's okay to talk about.
Angelica Negron: I think there's something really appealing to me about this juxtaposition of like the appearance could give you so much information and you could kind of feel like, okay, this is what I'm in for. And then the first note of the music starts, or they open their mouth, or they do a gesture that completely changes everything. I was assuming before the surprise element, the capacity to evoke empathy and draw you in, in a way that, I mean, for me at least, nothing else does.
Majel Connery: Yeah. You're putting your finger on something that I never thought about, which is that there's this, like, paradox in drag, which is that on the surface, it's all so fake, but it doesn't even need to be called fake. Like, it's. It's saying it's screaming. This isn't real. But then it's coupled with this incredible capacity for disclosure and for intimacy and for kind of letting the feelings flow. And I didn't I didn't make that connection. I mean, maybe that's not a paradox. It's it's it goes back to what you were saying again, which is that somehow in order for these things to come out, they have to overtly come out.
Angelica Negron: Right. Exactly.
Majel Connery: Let's fast forward to today and will you explain how you got interested in drag from a compositional perspective and how the Opera Philadelphia Commission came about and how on earth you ended up working with. The remarkable Sasha Velour.
Angelica Negron: I will say that my way back into drag was through "RuPaul's Drag Race," and it was through a friend that was like, Have you seen this show? I was a big fan of like "America's Next Top Model," a lot of those like cheesy competition shows. So I was like, okay, I'm in. And then I got super obsessed with it. I remember then being like, Oh, I'm in New York. And then there's so many different drag shows here every day. And one of the shows that I attended pretty regularly was Nightgowns, which is Sasha's show. And then when Upper Philadelphia reached out to me about doing a short art opera film, I remember Sarah from Opera Philadelphia, and our initial call asked me like, What's your kind of dream vision of this? And I said, Well, I I've always been wanting to work with Sasha Velour. I'm crazy for even saying that out loud because it's never going to happen. But I see Sasha's lips, I see her character, and then I hear Eliza's voice. I'm a big fan of Eliza's voice, and I put a lot of thought into the pairings of the voice and the drag queen.
Majel Connery: Can I just interrupt you, Angelica? I'm so, so sorry. I want to make sure that people listening know a few things about Sasha. So one is that she's the winner of "RuPaul's Drag Race: Season Nine." And I know that because I'm a total slobbering fan of "RuPaul's Drag Race." And Sasha is a really unique queen in many, many ways. But one way in particular is that she is a bald queen as an homage to her mother who died of cancer. And this is an extraordinary thing, because in the context of drag, you do not go out on stage without a wig. Mm hmm. It would be understood classically, at least as, like, showing your masculine aspect to do that. But Sasha is reframing what counts as feminine in this context and saying, no, I am a bald queen because my mother is beautiful and it is important to me to represent this. And that is extraordinary.
Angelica Negron: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, totally. And then the invitation to conversations and questions and obviously a wig and hair are one of the most emblematic signifiers of being a woman. Right. That's up there. And then just inviting a space to question why that is.
Majel Connery: Yeah.
Angelica Negron: For me, I mean, it starts with her appearance, but then her gestures, it's all this kind of very thoughtful way of presenting you with an experience that will just shake you to your core. And it's pretty. Incredible how it just infiltrates into my body. And as you know, I've had conversations with other people that have seen them, too. And it's just. It gets to you.
Majel Connery: What do you mean? Angelica, like, I'm so captivated by what you're saying. It sounds like the transformation is expressing something that you feel about yourself. But what exactly is that? If you can put your finger on it?
Angelica Negron: I mean, I, I, I would say it's more than that. It's for me, it's more like it's the way I see the world. Hmm. There is, I think, a very specific reason. Or at least I can think of one specific reason. That is part of why that's inherent to the art of drag, which is that it's born out of communities that have been repressed and have been oppressed. Sadly, you have to get really creative to survive. My brain goes to the Puerto Rican resilience and how media loves to use that word, and I've used it also in describing a piece. So I'm not, you know, known as a Puerto Rican. I'm not. Yeah. You know, it happens, but it's like, then why do we have to keep being resilient, you know, this thing of, like, keep throwing things at us and we'll take it. And, you know, what will be the most creative process ever, you know, like I said. But that comes from a deep place of survival. There's an overlap there in with drag. And in that, it comes also from a similar instinct that untapped creative potential and possibilities. Again, I don't I don't want to kind of romanticize or glorify creativity that comes out of trauma. But I do feel there is something inherent there and of tapping into a lot of emotions that, you know, sometimes we don't even have words for.
Majel Connery: Angelica, thank you so much.
Angelica Negron: I really do because my pleasure. And and I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, like, summarize very concisely those things. I just it's a thing that I have a hard time with.
Majel Connery: I know you're doing the exact same thing that one of my other guests did. She was already at the end.
Majel Connery: Yes. Yeah.
Angelica Negron: So sorry. What can I tell you? Please. I'm so sorry.
[Music starts: “Panorama”]
Majel Connery: You're listening to "Panorama," Angelica's piece for the cellist Nicholas Photinos. What I love about a lot of Angelica's work is that she can take a small sound and make it feel big. This piece is really simple. On paper, there's cello and there's gentle electronics. But off the paper, as the piece goes on, it starts to feel like it's levitating like a hot air balloon. It rises and gives us this opening. The sense of bigness and vastness. Like the name of the piece. It's giving us a panorama. A wide view. Sasha Velour has a great line. She says anyone can and must do drag. And she does not mean that we should all walk the runway in four inch heels. She means that drag is something we all do. Daily life is a performance. We modify how we present depending on where we happen to be. When Sasha says we can all and must all do drag, she means, let's be conscious of the drag we're already doing. Let's choose who we are and not let it be chosen. The thing about Angelica that is so disarming is that she is all in 100 percent in on being a petite Latina woman and she funnels that directly into a musical world that so perfectly reflects her. So if being in drag is going all in and whatever direction most says I am me, then Angelica is already doing drag and she's doing it to positive effect. The only thing I would add is that we all have to stop saying we're sorry and I say we and not she because more than one of my guests has ended their discussion this way. And I do it too. But drag, I'm pretty sure, is not sorry.
[Music up and ends: “Panorama”]
[Music starts: “Openwork, Knotted Object”]
Majel Connery: On our next episode, how composer inti figgis-vizueta expresses her world through her music.
inti figgis-vizueta: I put so much energy into what I do like. It is what I think about. It's what I dream about. It's what I read about. I think just like being hungry and optimistic, I think is, like, enough to keep me going for a long time.
Majel Connery: That's A Music of Their Own from CapRadio. Thank you for joining us.
[Music ends: “Openwork, Knotted Object”]
[Theme Music starts: “We Need a Room,” Sky Creature]
Majel Connery: A Music of Their Own is a CapRadio production. Interviews were engineered and produced by me, Majel Connery, and edited by Kevin Doherty. Paul Conley mastered the mix. Sally Schilling is our executive producer with production assistance from Jen Picard. Chris Hagan is our digital editor. Chris Bruno is in charge of marketing. Our designs were created by Marissa Espiritu. Renee Thompson is our digital projects manager and our social media is run by Emmy Gilbert and Emily Zentner. The theme song for A Music of Their Own is called “We Need a Room,” and it's by my band Sky Creature. You can find the song and Sky Creature on all major audio platforms. Don't forget to follow a music of their own wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you're hearing, please leave us a rating and a review so others can find this podcast, too. To find out more about the guests on our podcast, go to the show notes or visit capradio.org/amusicoftheirown. Thanks for listening.
[Theme Music ends: “We Need a Room,” Sky Creature]
