Greetings! Cindy Ybarra here, a co-owner of Campo de Estrellas. Since opening our cemetery, I’ve noticed that music has played an important element in the burials at Campo de Estrellas. Some families make their own while others bring favorite or particularly evocative recorded pieces. I got curious about music other families have found especially meaningful and started a collection. I’d like to share some of those with you here.

But first, I’ll tell you about one that I’ve chosen for myself: Tierra Mestiza (meaning roughly “land of cultural fusion”- which we all are). It was one that a dear young friend of mine often played with his musical family and one that he’d agreed to play at my funeral. Since he died an untimely death, the music holds additional significance for me.

Here are others that families have found particularly meaningful:

From Danny Schmidt, an extraordinary singer/ songwriter and all-around delightful person, we have Company of Friends. It was used at the funeral of a beloved friend of mine. Her company of friends felt like it captured perfectly who she was and expressed the sweetness of our years of friendship.

Gabriel’s Oboe from the movie “The Mission”, composed by Ennio Morricone, my favorite composer of movie scores. The tenderness at the beginning touches the heart with its poignancy and the triumphant ending speaks to the joy of remembering a life well-lived.

Barber’s Adagio, which was used as the theme song of the movie “Platoon”. It seems that many soldiers from the Vietnam era hold this music near to their hearts as it reawakens memories of both deep comradeship and the deep pain of loss.

The Adagio of the Concierto de Aranjuez. (And if you’ve never heard the complete Concierto, you’re missing out.)
From Wikipedia:

It was written in 1939 by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo. Rodrigo and his wife Victoria stayed silent for many years about the inspiration for this second movement, and thus the popular belief grew that it was inspired by the bombing of Guernica in 1937. In her autobiography, Victoria eventually revealed that it was a response to Rodrigo’s devastation at the miscarriage of their first pregnancy and Victoria’s grave illness following that event.