Gabriela Lena Frank
American composer and pianist Gabriela Lena Frank was born on 26 September 1972 and grew up in Berkeley, California. She has Lithuanian Jewish heritage through her father and also Peruvian/Chinese through her mother, all influencing her compositions.
She studied at Rice University and at Michigan University, and has studied composition with William Albright, Leslie Bassett, William Bolcom, Paul Cooper, Michael Daugherty and Samuel Jones.
Commissions include those from the Brentano Quartet, the Chanticleer Ensemble, the Chiara String Quartet, Dawn Upshaw, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the King's Singers, the Kronos Quartet, the Marilyn Horne Foundation, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the St Paul Chamber Orchestra.
She has been composer-in-residence with many festivals and orchestras, and has won various awards and prizes.
In 2015 she moved to Boonville, California, to start a farm with her husband. In 2017, she founded the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music to bring together renowned performers and emerging composers.
A selection of articles about Gabriela Lena Frank
Ensemble. On the Day of the Dead - Ron Bierman reports from San Diego on Gabriela Lena Frank's opera 'El último sueño de Frida y Diego'
Profile. Opera is a Whole New World - As rehearsals begin for her new opera, Gabriela Lena Frank talks to Ron Bierman