Del Sol Featured Composer-
Gabriela Lena Frank
Gabriela Lena Frank
The newest and youngest addition to publisher G. Schirmer’s prestigious roster of artists, Gabriela Lena Frank has been hailed as representing “the next generation of American composers”. Her compositions incorporating South American mythology, art, poetry, and folk music into western classical forms reflect her Peruvian-Jewish heritage and have been described as works of “honesty and genius” (Springfield Union-News) and “unself-conscious craft and mastery” (Washington Post). Upcoming premieres and collaborations include the Concierto de Picaflor (“Hummingbird Concerto”) for former Boston Symphony Orchestra flautist Leone Buyse under the baton of Larry Rachleff, The Legend of Viracocha for the Kronos Quartet, Amerindia for Innuendo in conjunction with the Snappy Dance Theater based in Boston, MA, and additional works for the Albany and Seattle Symphonies, the Orchestra of St. Lukeās, Grammy-winning guitarist Sharon Isbin, soprano Lucy Shelton, and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. In addition, her song cycle, Songs of Cifar and the Sweet Sea, will receive its Carnegie Hall premiere in the fall of 2004. Recently in the spring of 2004, Three Latin American Dances received its premiere by the Utah Symphony Orchestra (with Keith Lockhart conducting) and was hailed as “brilliant” (Salt Lake Tribune). It was subsequently recorded for the Dorian label (release date Spring 2005) along with Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances and Bernstein’s Dances from Westside Story. Several additional CD recordings of Gabriela’s solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral compositions are currently in production with major labels and artists.
Active as a pianist, Gabriela has recorded the complete solo piano and violin/piano compositions of Pulitzer Prize winning composer Leslie Bassett on the Equilibrium label for which the American Record Guide describes her performance as one of “care and enthusiasm.” She currently collaborates with renowned Peruvian ethnomusicologist Raul Romero in recording the piano music of indigenous composers of coastal and Andean Peru. Her live concert performances have been described as “captivating” (San Francisco Classical Voice) and “splendidly realized” (Raleigh-Durham Spectator). In the near future, she will premiere several works written specifically for her by Evan Chambers, Richard Lavenda, and Andrew Mead. Gabriela has also participated in the transcription and publication of a volume of piano works by the Venezuelan composer, Ramon Delgado Palacios through the Fundación Vicente Emilio Sojo in Caracas, Venezuela.
In the spirit of outreach, Gabriela completed three years as a volunteer at the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Adrian, Michigan, speaking with incarcerated felons on musical topics, a seminal experience for her. Between 2001 and 2003, she served a composer/pianist residency (sponsored by the American Composers Forum) with the Spencer Museum of Art and the music department at the University of Kansas, collaborating with students, faculty, and community members to bring to life several projects related to Hispanic music, art, and history. Recently, Gabriela joined the board of directors of the San Francisco chapter of the American Composers Forum to continue that organization’s mission of forging connections between communities and musicians in northern California.
Gabriela has been featured and recognized by a number of organizations including ASCAP, the Theodore Presser Music Foundation, the Society of Composers Inc., the National Federation of Music Clubs, the International Alliance of Women in Music, the National Endowment for the Arts, National Public Radio, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Composers Forum, the American Music Center, Arts International, the Gerard Schwarz/ASCAP Prize, the Meet The Composer Fund, and the inaugural Raymond and Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize for which she wrote An American in Perú, a work that combines Jewish and Peruvian music to recount her father’s travels in South America on a Peace Corps junket. Recently, she was named the 2005 Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Commissioned Composer by the California Association of Professional Music Teachers (CAPMT), for which she will compose a multi-movement solo piano work, The Book of Quipus. Gabriela will also serve as Resident Composer for the Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East in Bennington, Vermont during the summer of 2004, and composer-in-residence at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, the Peabody Conservatory, Mannes College of Music, the University of Kansas, Rice University, and Cornell University during the 2004- 2005 academic year. Gabriela is a frequent guest at schools and festivals across North and South America.
Born in Berkeley, CA in 1972, Gabriela holds degrees from Rice University and a doctorate (2001) from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her teachers for composition have included William Albright, Leslie Bassett, William Bolcom, Michael Daugherty and Samuel Jones. Her piano studies have been with Jeanne Kierman Fischer and Logan Skelton. She currently makes her home in the San Francisco Bay Area and travels often in Latin America.