Sin Fronteras

SIN FRONTERAS emerged from a utopian state of mind in which I found myself one day, daring to erase imaginary lines that disconnect us geographically, culturally and morally: Boundaries that the human race has willingly subscribed to for thousands of years. But what would happen if the walls that separate us from really getting to know one another were not there? While in the real world this idea would generates a fair amount of confusion, in the realm of music of the 21st century, this does not need to be so !

As a South American woman living in the United States for two decades, I chose sounds of places that felt closest to home: The Americas. In SIN FRONTERAS, we journey from the bottom of South America, traveling up both coasts and navigate all the way to the Northern hemisphere via Central America. The piece follows no storyline, but its main concept begin with a shocking reaction between two or more distinct cultures coming into contact for the first time. After the initial resistance, everyone collectively begins aggregating each other’s ethnic fragments into their own culture-spheres to create something new – while still preserving their original roots.

The piece accomplishes this amalgamation effect by taking advantage of an old time favorite musical form: Theme & Variation. Though It may not fit exactly into the cookie cutter format of this old tradition, there are several moments in the piece where familiar sounds, melodies and motifs come and go, grounding the listener for a moment, before morphing into something new.