Gabriela Lena Frank (born 1972)
Gabriela Lena Frank was born in Berkeley, California, to a Peruvian/Chinese mother and a Lithuanian/Jewish father. She earned B.A. and M.A. degrees from Rice University in Houston, and a D.M.A. in composition from the University of Michigan.
In 2017 she founded the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music (GLFCAM) to support other composers and performers. That website states about the founder:
Gabriela explores her multicultural heritage through her compositions. Inspired by the works of Bela Bartók and Alberto Ginastera, Gabriela has traveled extensively throughout South America in creative exploration. Her music often reflects not only her own personal experience as a multi-racial Latina, but also refract her studies of Latin American cultures, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own.
Gabriela Lena Frank originally composed her Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout for string quartet in 2001 but here is the 2003 string orchestra version.
She has written
Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout draws inspiration from the idea of mestizaje as envisioned by Peruvian writer José María Arguedas, where cultures can coexist without the subjugation of one by the other. As such, this piece mixes elements from the western classical and Andean folk music traditions.
More details can be found in the description section of the video.
About her 2017 composition Apu: Tone Poem for Orchestra she has written:
In Andean Peru, spirits are said to inhabit rocks, rivers, and mountain peaks with the intent of keeping a watchful eye on travelers passing through highland roads. The apu is one of the more well-known spirits that is sometimes portrayed as a minor deity with a mischievous side who is rarely seen. Simple folk song and a solemn prayer often successfully placate the apu to ensure safe passage through the mountains.
Apu: Tone Poem for Orchestra begins with a short folkloric song inspired by the agile ‘pinkillo’ flute, a small slender instrument that packs well into the small bags of travelers who must travel light. It is followed by the extended ‘haillí’ of the second movement, a prayer to the apu, which flows attacca to the third movement in which the apu makes its brief but brilliant and dazzling appearance before disappearing once again into the mountain peaks.”
Conductor Marin Alsop leads an orchestra of young musicians of the National Youth Orchestra of the USA.
Gabriela Lena Frank was born with high-moderate/near-profound hearing loss, and in a fascinating article in the New York Times, she discusses how this has given her insight into the music of Beethoven.