What happens when a new place becomes your home?
When composer Iván Enrique Rodriguez moved from Puerto Rico to the mainland U.S., he realized that his sense of "Puerto Rican-ness" slowly shifted.
But rather than mourning the loss of a Puerto Rican identity, he realized that it was simply a change in form, a new way of feeling Puerto Rican.
That transformation, and the questions about identity and belonging that it brings up, formed the basis of his contribution to the El Puerto Rico project, "Transmutación Inerte."
The Victory Players:
Tianhui Ng, music director
Angela Santiago, ensemble manager
Nathan Ben-Yehuda, piano
Clare Monfredo, cello
Giovanni A. Perez, flute
Robert Rocheteau, percussion
Eric Schultz, clarinet
Elly Toyoda, violin
You can watch an interview with Rodriguez below, with a transcript in both English and Spanish.
Spanish language translation: Damaris Pérez-Pizarro
El Puerto Rico is a collaboration of the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts (MIFA), New England Public Media and GBH Music, which originally published a version of this post.