My analysis of True Negatives combines two interconnected approaches: (1) a semi-structured interview with the composer, conducted in Bogotá in June 2024, and (2) a comparative score analysis informed by theory outside the modern/colonial frame.
The interview took place informally, over coffee after lunch, a setting conducive to open, reflective conversation. The dialogue lasted 51 minutes and was recorded with the composer’s written consent. Acosta was aware of the broader research context (my dissertation on Latin American composers and memory) but not of the specific questions, which were designed to avoid digression into daily politics while focusing on compositional decisions and ethical motivations. The conversation was later transcribed using AI tools, then verified and annotated by repeated listening. The transcription was analyzed through qualitative coding, focusing on emergent themes like “ethics,” “self-regulation,” and “hierarchy”. Days after the interview was taken, Rodolfo sent me the PDF document of the edited score via email.
True Negatives is unconventional. It encourages open instrumentation and consists of “cyclical modules of execution.” Alongside a brief performance guide outlining its conventions, the score includes five pages of “written music,” a surprisingly small amount of notation for a work that can, in principle, last indefinitely. Although it employs Western notation, its visual layout and notation practices depart significantly from traditional compositional norms.
The score analysis involved multiple steps. Initially, I compared the written material with four different recordings of the piece, examining how performers navigated its open form. The first recording was by Gusano Con Mente De Plastilina, released in 2023. The second was by CG ensemble, as part of the Portrait CD of Colombian composer Rodolfo Acosta, which features works from 1995 to 2018. The third recording, from 2018, was directed by Laura Velasco Rios during a conductor's workshop. The fourth was another performance by the members of the CG ensemble, this time with a smaller instrumentation, consisting of only 4 performers, including Rodolfo Acosta as guitarist and conducting the composition himself. Although each performance met the score’s minimal requirements, their instrumentation varied widely, creating contrast. The analysis focused on the relationship between the score’s written instructions and elements not explicitly notated but present in the music. I paid particular attention to moments when score instructions became 'invisible,' meaning performer agency exceeded visual cues. I also examined how different ensembles interpreted indeterminate zones, which I believe are where the work’s epistemically disobedience is most perceptible. Specifically, those zones where the repetition, or as Acosta called it, “cyclical modules of execution,” overlapped different musical materials in different moments, it was where I exercised my listening, to identify if this ‘loop’ changed in any sense, to play more in assembled, according to the new context. These zones exemplify Vázquez’s concept of relational time and Ochoa Gautier’s (2014) ‘aural turn,’ shifting focus from visual to listening as a mode of knowing.
Following the analysis, I conducted a triangulation exercise, relating the transcribed interview, my theoretical framework, the score and recording analysis, and the context about the false positives, to identify robust connections, metaphors, and theoretical insights.
