Composer Profile: Gabriela Lena Frank

Pacific Serenades joined a consortium of seven ensembles-spearheaded by the Mallarme Chamber Players (Durham, NC), along with the Colorado Chamber Players (Denver), Cornish College of the Arts (Seattle), Fulcrumpoint New Music Project (Chicago), Monadnock Music Festival Peterborough (New Hampshire), and the Azure Ensemble (New York City)-to commission Berkeley native, Gabriela Lena Frank, to write a piece for flute, viola, cello, and harp. The resulting work Rapsodia Andina received its world premiere on May 1, 2011, and Pacific Serenades will give its west coast premiere performances on June 4, 5, and 7.

Gabriela and I shared a few emails, in which she gave very enlightening, insightful, and fun answers to my questions:

Have you been composing since childhood? If so, or if not, when and how did the composing bug bite you?

I guess it depends on how one defines composing! Many think you are not composing unless you write down your music on paper. Others say that’s not necessary. If the more forgiving definition is given, then you could stay I started composing when I was about three. I really inherited it from my grandmother, Lucy Frank, and we used to improvise at the piano together.

Are you active as a performing pianist now? Can you say a few words about how your experience as a performer has influenced your own music?

Yes, I’m active as a performer, both for live concerts and recordings, and I’m grateful for it. When I play, it makes me a better composer, and my performer colleagues help me float to their level, however briefly! You wouldn’t want to hear my Beethoven, but I play a mean Bartok and Shostakovich. I just contracted a gig with the iconic Paquito D’Rivera where I’ll need to test my jazz chops, and I’m very excited about that.

Having grown up myself in California, I consider us California composers to be a different breed from our counterparts on the east coast. In fact, that is a major component of why I founded Pacific Serenades way back in 1982-to give voice to those of us who were a) largely ignored by the east-coast classical music “establishment” and b) writing music that is distinctly different from what composers elsewhere are doing. So, could you respond to that issue and how you think growing up in California has affected your music (or not)?

Honestly, I feel liberated to not hail from the East Coast. When I’m in New York, I have to stifle my giggles when my colleagues are so hyper-aware of trends proliferating just blocks away, and define the entire music industry from within such narrow confines. There is a tendency to not see the world for how large it is, and I think we can’t escape that. More specifically, growing up in the Bay Area was significant because this area witnessed an influx of musicians visiting from Perú and Bolivia when I was a child. This had a profound effect on me, exposing me to the music of my mother’s culture.

Our model has always been to commission a new work as the centerpiece of a concert that is otherwise made up of pieces from the standard repertoire. Any thoughts about being on a program like this? Is it normal for your music, or are you more accustomed to being on all-new-music programs?

I am most often programmed on concerts with composers from all eras than on new-music programs, and I think that’s healthy. I feel that I’m composing for audiences and performers who are aware of the big picture, and although I do feel there is a place for new music concerts (and women-composer concerts, Latino composer concerts, and so forth), my ultimate goal is to stand hand-in-hand with a rich variety of artists.

Any specific thoughts about chamber music-writing it, or just enjoying it?

I’ve been really blessed to have projects that range all over–orchestra, choral, opera, etc–but at heart, I’m a chamber music composer. I just love the dynamic of responsibility that each person carries within a more intimate ensemble. Even when I’m writing for other genres, I think you can tell that I love the trio, the quartet, the duo…

If you are not sick of talking about this, I’d love to hear about your synthesizing of anthropological roots and other roots-Western classical music, and anything else. I’ve always thought it is one of the most compelling things going on today in new music.

Ah well… I could talk about this all day long, and often do! Mestiza woman, mestiza music, you know. I’ve always been interested in this question of what it means for me to be Latina as opposed to my mother (who is latinoamerican as she is a native of South America). It seems to demand that I keep identifying something I don’t know much about, design a project that promises to leave me a bit more enlightened, and then have the courage to tackle it. It could be studying afro-peruano styles on the percussive cajón and trying to find how that could overlap with a cellist’s vocabulary and tradition to write a solo cello suite, for instance. If I do my job right, I’ll have illuminated new possibilities for both the cajón and cello. That’s at the heart of “mestizaje,” or the condition in which cultures can come together without one subjugating another. Mestiza woman, mestiza music…