Vida Atrapada – A Trapped Life. By Laura Silva (Venezuela-US)

“Vida Atrapada – A Trapped Life” is a work for mixed choir and piano written in memoriam of a group of shipwrecked Venezuelans who perished trying to leave the country. Their boat sailed from the little town Güiria (East Coast) towards the Caribbean Island of Trinidad in December 2020. The piece reflects on the current Venezuelan migrant crisis, in which people, in both despair and hope, flee for a new life, many times just by walking or by a boat, without enough support or planning.

Currently resident in the United States of America and unable to attend the Study Day in pereson, Laura Silva joined Kenneth Tay, Kotryna Starkutė, and Ashley Holdsworth Quinn in an online conversation recorded prior to the Study Day.


(Edited by Kenneth Tay)

The first movement, “Merengue en Balsa – Merengue on a Boat” (2021) explores a series of hybrids as identities transform in the new home countries. It is rhythmically inspired in the traditional Venezuelan merengue of 5/8, reinterpreting this odd metric as part of the instability of the circumstances. The text inadvertently shifts between English and Spanish, and alternates spoken text with signing lines, while it produces a dissonant but still tonal atmosphere.

The second movement, “Requiem” (2022), responds to the desperate emotions portraited in the first movement, taking the question of “what is a trapped life?” to a spiritual dimension, in which what ultimately matters is the Eternal Rest. Initially developed within harmonic tension, it eventually resolves into a processional prayer.

“Vida Atrapada” is part of Silva’s creative work and scholar research during her PhD studies on Interdisciplinary Arts at Ohio University. It was premiered in 2021 by the Ohio University Singers conducted by Dr. Bradley Naylor.

laura.silva.lewis@gmail.com

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