Greetings from Florida: Postcards from Paradise (2024)

Greetings from Florida: Postcards from Paradise is a genre-bending song-cycle that explores the theme of Florida as a perceived “utopia,” written for Chilean jazz vocalist and guitarist Camila Meza and an ensemble of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion. Cuban-American poet Carolina Hospital wrote poems that serve as the lyrics for the songs.

Florida is and has been seen as a kind of utopia for many – retirees, tourists, immigrants, nature-lovers, conquistadors, and others – who have been drawn here by the promise of prosperity and beauty. But upon arrival, they are often forced to reconcile their imagined idea of Florida with the reality of the place as it actually exists. Some, in the process of trying to remake Florida in the image of their own utopia, end up risking the destruction of what makes Florida a utopia for others, including its unique natural environment and cultural heritage.

Some of the songs’ topics hew close to this utopian theme, such as “Rewind,” whose lyrics describe the experience of a retiree moving to one of the many miniature, sanitized versions of a Floridian utopia for the elderly: “he finds himself / in a shadowless subtopia / where the sun whitewashes color / and nothing is battered.” Sharp contrasts in the vocal line and musical textures of another song, “Sloganland,” match the lyrics, which consist of actual slogans from Floridian attractions – “Where the Magic Happens” – juxtaposed with descriptions of the experiences of the immigrants whose hard work fuels those attractions: “the raft flips as thousands dream.” 

Other songs center on the conflict between rampant development and the natural world, including “Big Waters,” which poetically evokes the catastrophic effects of rising sea levels on Floridian cities through the increasing rhythmic compression of its repeated refrain: “big waters rising / lowlands drink up,” and the song “Rain is the Lover,” which describes the misuse of Florida’s many life-giving natural springs that are at risk of drying up: “this clear magnificence / is betrayed / for scrap silver / and we look away / as others extract / first magnitudes.”