You can hear it in works like Negrón's Sinfonía Isleña, a symphonic salute to Puerto Rico's flora and fauna, or the string quartet Marejada, which includes field recordings from Seven Seas Beach on the island's eastern tip. Economic oppression, along with the natural disasters, can make it hard for people from there to stay - and so longing for home is part of the culture of the Puerto Rican diaspora. The island has been pummeled by hurricanes in recent years, damaging its electricity grid and triggering an 11-month blackout, the longest in U.S. While Puerto Rico is fecund with natural beauty, Negrón says it's a tough place to live. It's a powerful attraction/resistance incongruity that informs how she moves in the world. But even as her work is increasingly heard in concert halls across America, the island keeps calling her back - back to her family and friends, to the sounds of reggaeton, to the mountains, flowers and beaches, all of which flow through her concert music. The purple-coiffed 42-year-old composer left her hometown of Carolina, just outside San Juan, 17 years ago and decamped to the hip Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. We will forever cherish Milton’s creative charisma, wisdom, generosity, and kindness.Angélica Negrón feels the push and pull of her native Puerto Rico. We stopped by his studio to say hello and congratulate him… I still can feel his big, gentle, and skinny hand in mine. The last time we saw Milton in person was a few days after his 90th birthday. We are sure that he would have contributed to the Fellini project too, but, unfortunately, his illness made him unable to do that – he took all his ideas with him to share them with Fellini.

When I was curating an International selection for Sarajevo 100 project, he responded to our call, and, together with Mirko, they designed a beautiful diptych for that occasion. I was lucky to have an opportunity to exchange some works with Milton and have a few posters and books inscribed with his dedication. Those yearly encounters have become deeply embedded in memories of all of us. In 1991 Paul Davis introduced me to Milton, and since then, all these years, thanks to Mirko Ilic’s assistance, he would stop by to Mirko’s studio to talk to my students in his fatherly manner and answer all their questions, big and small. We knew Milton personally since our arrival in the USA. This page belongs to MILTON GLASER, our idol in many aspects, who left this world on June 26, 2020, at age 91.

Federico fellini 8 12 poster