Floresta: Soundbath
By Angélica Negrón, Darian Donovan Thomas, and Raquel Acevedo Klein
Copresented with Public Functionary
In partnership with American Composers Forum
Dates & Times:
Fri, Jan 31, 2025, 6:00 pm
Sat, Feb 1, 2025, 3:00 pm & 5:00 pm
Venue: Public Functionary
Cost: $25
Floresta was originally commissioned and presented by the Brooklyn Botanical Garden in 2023 and will be reconceived for Minnesota winter as part of The Great Northern 2025.
Inspired by trees’ underground communication network, composers/performers Angélica Negrón, Darian Donovan Thomas, and Raquel Acevedo Klein collaborate in an evening of live unfolding soundscapes using voices, violin, plants, flowers, bells, synths, accordion, water, found objects, and mechanical percussion. Moving fluidly between dreamy immersive soundscapes and more dynamic, rhythmically driven compositions, the trio will explore a wide range of musical ideas. Floresta also stars nature itself as a featured performer as MIDI Sprout technology translates biodata from plants into music.
The program will include excerpts from the three composers/performers: Negrón’s symphony Sinfonía Isleña and site specific choral piece Chorus of the Forest; Acevedo Klein’s entrancing Wisteria and rhythmically playful Amaryllis; and Darian Donovan Thomas’ elastic and heartfelt Safe Space from his forthcoming album, and Olana, his immersive installation soundscape—plus a rework of Negrón’s Planeaciones (part of For the Birds: The Birdsong Project, Vol. 1) and a special cover of Björk’s All is Full of Love.
Plan Your Experience
Arrive in comfortable clothing. Visitors can choose to stand, sit or lie down on cushions, or sit on chairs provided in the space.
Chairs, couches, floor cushions, and a limit number of yoga mats will be available for visitors to the event. If you’d like to ensure access to a yoga mat, please feel free to bring your own
Access Information
Stair access to all studios is available at the main 1500 Jackson entrance and the Van Buren entrance. Main Gallery and PF Cafe can be found at “Door C” off the main loading dock, with a few steps up.
Step-free access via an ADA ramp on the northern side of the main building leading to the double doors marked Dock 6. Once inside turn left by the passenger elevator and proceed through hallways to Studio #144 (main PF Gallery + Cafe). There is a ramp into the gallery. Use the passenger elevator inside Dock 6 to access PF Studios on different floors and PF Upstairs Gallery in #247.
About the Performers
Angélica Negrón is a Puerto Rican-born composer and multi-instrumentalist. She writes music for voices, orchestras, and film as well as robots, toys, and plants. Recent commissions include works for Opera Philadelphia, the LA Philharmonic, NY Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Sō Percussion, Kronos Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, and an original score for the HBO docuseries Menudo: Forever Young.
Her work has been premiered by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (featuring singer Lido Pimienta), Santa Rosa Symphony & Eugene Symphony (First Symphony project), and The Hermitage Artist Retreat (as the recipient of the 2022 Hermitage Greenfield Prize). Residencies have included WNYC’s The Greene Space, the NY Botanical Garden, and The Collider Fellowship at Lincoln Center (2024).
Angélica regularly performs a solo show and is a founding member of the tropical electronic band Balún. As an educator, Angélica has been a teaching artist with NY Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program and with Lincoln Center Education. Angélica lives in Brooklyn, where she’s always looking for ways to incorporate her love of drag, comedy, and the natural world into her work.
Raquel Acevedo Klein
Brooklyn-born and raised conductor, vocalist, instrumentalist and visual artist Raquel Acevedo Klein was recently named by The Washington Post as a “classical composer and performer to watch in 2022.” She has conducted for the New York Philharmonic, Roomful of Teeth, the Grammy Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Beth Morrison Projects, and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. She has premiered vocal work by John Adams, Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, Paola Prestini, and performed with Caroline Shaw, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Bon Iver, Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear, Claire Chase and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She has performed onstage at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, The Town Hall, BAM, and on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
In 2021, Acevedo Klein curated a four-week festival to celebrate the opening of Little Island, where she premiered her audience-interactive motet "Polyphonic Interlace," made from 40 recorded layers of her voice. Opera Philadelphia has commissioned Acevedo Klein to compose her first full-length opera about her family in Puerto Rico and Colombia, which she will perform in as the lead role. Over the course of her young career, Acevedo Klein has captured the attention of The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Los Angeles Times. Her versatility as a musician and composer make Acevedo Klein a highly sought after collaborator.
Darian Donovan Thomas is a Brooklyn based composer, multi-instrumentalist, and interdisciplinary artist. He is interested in combining genres into a singular vocabulary that can express ideas about intersectionality (of medium and identity). Necessarily, his work aims to redact all barriers to entry that have existed at the gates of any genre - this vocabulary of multiplicity will be intersectional, and therefore all-inclusive. He has received a Bachelors in Music Composition from The University of the Incarnate Word, and was a 2018 New Amsterdam Composer Lab Fellow, 2018 SoSI Composer Fellow, and 2019 Bang On A Can Composition Fellow. He is currently touring with Moses Sumney, Balùn, and Arooj Aftab.