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Gabriela Lena Frank
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Gabriela Lena Frank is an American composer of contemporary classical music and pianist. Her father is an American of Lithuanian Jewish heritage, her mother is Peruvian of Chinese descent, and she grew up in Berkeley, California. Her parents met when her father was a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru in the 1960s.
Frank's work often draws on her multicultural heritage, especially drawing on Latin American idioms. Her music has been commissioned and performed by the Kronos Quartet, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony, Chanticleer Ensemble, the Chiara String Quartet, the Brentano Quartet, Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, Carnegie Hall, the Marilyn Horne Foundation, and guitarist Manuel Barrueco with the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, the King's Singers, directors of the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center Wu Han and David Finckel (also cellist with the Emerson Quartet), soprano Dawn Upshaw and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, among others. Past performances include those by the San Francisco Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella series.
2009 was an eventful year for Gabriela: She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as a Latin Grammy for best Contemporary Classical Music Composition for Inca Dances (Tonar Label), which was written for guitarist Manuel Barrueco and the Cuarteto Latinoamericano. She was also the feature of a PBS documentary entitled "Peregrinos" (produced by Emmy-winning producer Aric Hartvig) regarding her residency with the Indianapolis Symphony orchestra between 2007 and 2009 where she composed a Joyce Award-winning work inspired by the stories of Latino immigrants in Indianapolis. In the fall of 2009, she accepted a position with her hometown orchestra, the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, to serve as its new Creative Advisor. In this capacity, she will work closely with conductor Joana Carneiro to assist with designing orchestral programming, mentor composers in the Under Construction program, and identify other areas of artistic growth.
Related websites
The Shepherd School of music
San Francisco, California
Gabriela Lena Frank page
Gabriela Lena Frank page
The Beautiful Next Step: An In-depth Interview with Composer Gabriela Lena Franks (in 8 parts)
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Gabriela Lena Frank
