Migration
Migration is a staged concert work built around two musically contrasting yet thematically intertwined pieces: Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring and José Martínez’s 39 Inside. Together, these works examine migration across two historical and emotional landscapes: one mythologized, expansive, and westward-facing; the other contemporary, enclosed, and devastatingly human.
The concert opens with Copland’s Appalachian Spring, reimagined through stage design, movement, and dance to evoke the covered-wagon imagery of westward expansion. In this framing, the work becomes not only a portrait of American optimism and settlement, but also an early example of migration as aspiration, displacement, and nation-building.
The program closes with Martínez’s 39 Inside, a jarring modern counterpoint. Inspired by the story of 39 Central American migrants discovered inside a semi-trailer in San Antonio, the work confronts migration not as pastoral ideal, but as perilous necessity. Scored for chamber ensemble, electronics, video, and dancers, 39 Inside requires direct interaction between instrumentalists and movement artists while confining the performance within the visual and spatial limitations of a semi-trailer.
By pairing these works, Migration creates a powerful dialogue between two visions of movement: the mythic and the immediate, the open frontier and the sealed container, the promise of arrival and the danger of passage. Shared props, related staging, and parallel instrumentation connect the two pieces, allowing their differences to sharpen one another. What begins as an image of expansion ultimately narrows into confinement, asking the audience to reconsider what migration has meant, what it means now, and whose stories are allowed to define it.
