Recipient of the 68th BMI Student Composer Award and the 2020 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Onceavo Cielo (The Eleventh Heaven) gets its title from the eleventh strata (level) in the Nahua heavens/cosmogony. This is the strata where Xiuhtecutli (god of fire) and his female counterpart Chantico (goddess of wrath and volcanoes) dwell. This heaven is described as "the red sky full of rays where the dying Sun and twilight reside."

​Specifically, this piece investigates Xiuhtecutli's role in the Nahua creation myth depicted in the Fejérváry-Mayer Codex, a pre-Hispanic sacred manuscript. The codex vividly portrays the four cardinal directions, sacred trees, and night lords, all encircling Xiuhtecuhtli—the god of fire. In his hand, Xiuhtecuhtli holds the 'fire of creation'—the axis that embodies time itself, weaving together the thirteen heavens, eight underworlds, and our plane of existence—the fire with which he sparked the universe into existence.

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Nicknamed the 'old god,' Xiuhtecuhtli's role in Mesoamerican religion faded and transformed as Christianity and subsequent syncretisms developed during the Spanish viceroyal period. This orchestral piece reflects on 'memorability' and the transfigurative/burning force of time. Like Xiuhtecuhtli, not even gods, beliefs, or deities can escape it, as they too change, morph, and sometimes perish in time.

At its core, this piece is about memorability, idealization, and aesthetic historicism as questions of impermanence—the impermanence of time, of believes, of gods, and of music—become unavoidable.