From the first notes, we are thrust into an oscillating space. Here tensions of belonging transform static notions of being into dynamic sonic waves. It is a volatile yet generative terrain of creativity—difficult to grasp fully at first, but rich with the emotions of an ever-fluctuating existence. The concept of recovecos—nooks or hidden corners—captures this idea: an uninhabitable place, yet a kind of home that resists the borders of the domestic sphere while simultaneously thriving within its comforts. 

Recovecos
noun

Nooks or hidden corners

Curated by Puerto Rican composer Angélica Negrón and conducted by Raquel Acevedo Klein, this Green Umbrella program flourishes within this expanded sense of the “domestic.” As scholar Amy Kaplan observes, the domestic “not only links the familial household to the nation but also imagines both in opposition to everything outside the geographic border of the home.” The recovecos presented here are situated within this tension, shaped both by nostalgia and memory for the formative, familial home—where the commands of empire are first learned and absorbed—and by the uncertainty of an unbounded external space, where creativity escapes such limitations, redefining the meaning of belonging.

These diverse voices reflect what I have called Un/Belonging elsewhere: “a positionality for creative conception that challenges and deconstructs conventional notions of belonging within the context of empire and colonization…an unsettling place outside static fantasies of the border.” As such, the music—an ontological impulse to define what it means to exist beyond imposed boundaries—emerges from this recoveco. Whether confronting the borders of the classical music world or the constraints faced by diasporic creative communities, these pieces exemplify ongoing efforts to create outside domestic limitations. 

Cuban composer Tania León’s Toque (2006) effortlessly expresses the spirit of this ambiguous yet complex positionality. Toque refers to a gathering centered on music and dance, where the polyrhythmic influences celebrate Afro-Cuban Santería. In its second part, the piece draws from Almendra (Fernando Z. Maldonado, 1938), a seminal danzón—a type of ballroom dance that emerged in 19th-century Cuba by blending European and Afro-Caribbean music. Through León’s syncopation and deconstructed jazz elements, the work expands on the experimental spirit inherent in the Caribbean innovation of danzónes. The Pulitzer Prize winner’s piece evokes a sense of place whose meaning is found not only in identifying its multivalent sources but also in its evocations—a musical multiplicity that disrupts the static conceptions of place by way of highlighting the intricate processes of Cuban musical history. 

Similarly, Darian Donovan Thomas’ reimagining of Volver, Volver (Maldonado, 1972)—an iconic Mexican ranchera that voices the longing of returning to the arms of one’s beloved—takes on new meanings here. Beyond referencing emotional yearning, its subtle yet affecting instrumentation, electronic arrangements, and poignant vocal delivery invite us to imagine a different kind of return, one where the sentimentality of belonging is freed from nationalistic constraints and transformed into an infinite, cosmic, and ongoing exploration of identity. 

Pasemisí, Pasemisá (2021), composed by Puerto Rican musician Christian Quiñones, embodies the very strains of Un/Belonging. The title, drawn from a phrase used in a Puerto Rican children’s game, underscores the piece’s playful yet complex foundation. Much of its driving rhythm is generated through what Quiñones calls “body percussion.” The strings and corporeal sonic textures blend in an intentional strain that adds nuance to the complicated nature of childhood, a set of adult fantasies imposed on children that can be counterbalanced only by the freedom of play. The evocative sounds of strings amplify the stomping, clapping, and thumping of the bodies onstage. This demanding and seemingly ludic coordination seeks to displace the need to belong into a question of upbringing, both within the freedom of childhood’s innocence and the cultural restraints of place. As expressed by Quiñones, Pasemisí, Pasemisá grooves to create a space by quoting an intricate rhythmic tapestry that breaks the patterns of nostalgia into a sense of sadness; a push and pull between past and present and everything lost in between.  

This place of Un/Belonging is not limited to the dichotomy of the domestic. In the works of Nathalie Joachim and Juan Andrés Vergara, it evokes a different kind of battle—one where authenticity wavers between inner struggles and external expectations. Joachim’s I’m Right Here (2023), for example, traces the highs and lows of a carved path toward sincerity. Its gentle opening returns at the end, but only after carrying the listener through a dynamic ostinato that elevates the force of this inner conflict to unexpected heights. In her words: “Fighting to be seen for who you genuinely are versus who the world imagines you to be can be a painful and unsettling process, particularly when you’ve been culturally conditioned to hide in plain sight.” Her struggle, then, lies not only in societal constraints of belonging but also in an inward reckoning with expectations, triumphs, and desires refracted through the external forces of existence. 

In a similar vein, Vergara’s Fragmentos (2014) channels the ongoing internal dialogue of belonging into a joyous string piece that unearths beauty from chaos—a reflection of his life in a Latin American metropolis, Mexico City, where survival often depends on uncovering splendor within daily cacophony. In some ways, the tensions expressed throughout this program find resolution in Vergara’s melodious yet passionately asynchronous orchestration. 

Colombian musician, composer, and singer Lido Pimienta has long navigated the ambiguous space shaped by expectations of belonging. Her projects continually evolve in search of new recovecos that in many ways culminate in Corazón. Throughout her career, Pimienta has asserted a distinct musical positionality, one that increasingly embraces orchestration as a way to frame her central questions. Like all the compositions performed this evening, Pimienta’s music rejects sentimental nationalism and reductive identity politics, instead pursuing an intersectional vision that reverberates through the soft yet determined final notes of Corazón. Always creating from a place of Un/Belonging, her work strives toward a sense of grounding that resonates in this Green Umbrella piece more deeply than ever before.  

Arquitecta (2023) also evokes a different kind of belonging—one in which the words of Puerto Rican poet Amanda Hernández, the voice of Lido Pimienta, and the music of Angélica Negrón honor the domestic realm. Here, the traditionally female space is reimagined as a carefully constructed site of resistance, where the ordinary becomes both a lesson in endurance and a blueprint for survival beyond the comfort of its walls. This recoveco takes shape through un/traditional instruments, such as mounted calderos—saucepans typically used for everyday cooking.  

Echoing Arquitecta’s spirit of experimentation, Hernández debuts a poem titled Recovecos that gathers verses she wrote over the past 10 years, reconfiguring memory into episodes of nostalgia to reflect on a life devoted to poetry in Puerto Rico. The fragmentary nature of this poetic exercise will be reconstituted through the organic sounds of tropical fruits, sonically activated by Negrón. Together, they compose a singular form of tropical still life that, rather than simply acknowledging the inevitable passage of time, draws energy from each word and fruit to remind listeners of the life forces embedded within this tableau vivant.  

The transformation of utilitarian tools and fruits into sonic instruments becomes a metaphor for Negrón’s work as both composer and curator of this program. She bridges the domestic sounds of her hometown to the sphere of classical music, not to elevate the quotidian into the artistic, but to affirm that the sounds with which she grew up already hold their own place. They inhabit a recoveco that belongs on this stage while standing apart, reminding us of the possibilities born from connecting such seemingly disparate worlds. 

Emmanuel Ortega is the Marilynn Thoma Scholar and Assistant Professo in Art of the Spanish Americas at the University of Illinois at Chicago.