Gabriela Lena Frank and LA is the World

The newest commission of LA is the World is an eagerly anticipated collaboration with one of the country’s most significant contemporary composers, Gabriela Lena Frank, and the LA-based South American ensemble Huayucaltia. Guggenheim Fellowship and Latin Grammy-winner Gabriela Lena Frank has “clearly emerged as a major composer in America” (San Francisco Classical Voice). The daughter of a Lithuanian-Jewish father and a Peruvian-Chinese mother, Frank grew up in Berkeley, CA, and found an affinity for the music of indigenous Latin America, eventually travelling extensively throughout South America. One of the country’s most sought-after composers, Frank has frequently collaborated with and had her music performed by Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble; the Kronos Quartet; soprano Dawn Upshaw; Chanticleer; and the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and Seattle, among many others. She is currently working on a new opera on the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz.