“At home on farmland 115 miles north of San Francisco in Boonville, California, pianist and composer Gabriela Lena Frank is surrounded by and attuned to sounds typical of a rural childhood,” writes Lou Fancher in last Monday’s (7/2) San Francisco Classical Voice. The farmland is the venue for the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, founded by the composer in 2017. “The nonprofit training institute offers emerging composers short-term retreats during which Frank directly mentors professional development and offers readings of works in progress, public concerts, and recordings made by local radio stations of the finished pieces. While in residence—the composers stay in Frank’s two homes on the property—they participate in outreach activities at schools with low access to art and at a local adult education center. Concerts this year in Portland, South Carolina, and next year in Berkeley, Baltimore, and Massachusetts expand the program. A future plan includes reducing the pool of composers [from] 26 composers … to about 15—and an initiative to supply grant funds or commissions for alumni…. ‘To have resources for all of these composers, it would be easier if I slow the numbers down,’ ” says Frank.
Posted July 10, 2018
