Recovecos, a concert curated by Angélica Negrón for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella series, invited the audience into an evolving musical experience. The works didn’t follow a single aesthetic path; instead, they traced how composers hear the worlds they come from and how they translate lived experience into sound.
The program centered on music by Caribbean and Latin American artists whose work engages questions of memory, place, and belonging. With Raquel Acevedo Klein guiding the evening at the podium, the program unfolded with clarity and joy, each work emerging with its own logic and expressive identity.
The first piece, Christian Quiñones’s “Pasemisí, Pasemisá,” asked a string quartet to clap, snap, stomp, and vocalize their way into the piece. Those first gestures set the groove, establishing a rhythmic center before any pitched material appeared. The rhythm took shape naturally, creating a foundation the rest of the piece could grow from. The players handled that pulse with the ease of lively conversation — clear and tightly coordinated without ever feeling rigid.
Later in the program, Tania León’s “Toque” reframed the rhythmic focus, letting quick flashes of Cuban danzón dart through her sharply etched textures. Her phrasing traced hints of the dance tune “Almendra” in tiny rhythmic turns — brief accents and inflections that guided the music’s flow.
A softer, more inward energy settled over the hall for Nathalie Joachim’s “I’m Right Here.” Looping figures evolved in small, purposeful ways, building a hushed, longing momentum. The piece unfolded gradually, with each return of a phrase offering a small change in perspective, an unhurried step forward. Its pacing felt unforced and assured.
Juan Andrés Vergara worked with a similar sensitivity in “Fragmentos.” The wind quintet drifted into focus with the softness of something half-remembered, the music finding its center without pressure. His “fragments” carried a tranquil unity; they felt gathered rather than scattered. Both works treated subtlety as an essential part of their craft.
Negrón’s own “Arquitecta” stepped into a broader landscape. With Lido Pimienta’s voice at the center and Amanda Hernández’s poetry as foundation, the piece blended electronics, strings, and the delicate clinks of pots and pans folded into the percussion battery. The combination created a sense of home that was spacious and luminous. Negrón shaped the ensemble in gradual, carefully placed timbral shifts, allowing Pimienta’s voice to emerge with natural clarity.
Presented soon after, Hernández’s spoken “Recovecos” supplied the night’s clearest articulation of memory and belonging, accompanied by Negrón adding soft electronic color through tropical fruits wired as touch-sensitive controllers.
The program’s arc turned once more in its final works. Darian Donovan Thomas, reimagining “Volver, Volver,” thinned the ranchera song’s melody into sustained lines supported by delicate ensemble writing and ambient electronics. His violin, electronically processed and radiant, moved through evolving timbres until its unprocessed, natural tone finally appeared at the end of the piece, a gentle assertion of identity.
Lido Pimienta’s “Corazón,” arranged by Owen Pallett, carried that openness forward. Her voice held deep warmth and resolve while Pallett’s orchestration gave her room to bloom. Her presence onstage — warm and unguarded — was the performance’s focal point.
Klein’s conducting throughout the evening was expressive and welcoming. She offered clear pathways through changing textures and styles, helping each piece find its own character. Under her direction, the program’s wide stylistic range felt coherent and balanced.
What lingered after the Recovecos concert wasn’t a unified style, but a unified approach: listening as the essential creative act. These composers listened deeply — to the rhythms that shaped them, the memories they return to, and the sounds that carry a sense of place — and the performances made that attention feel immediate. The program revealed its cohesion in small, sometimes unexpected ways, each piece helping illuminate the next.
