Spring 2017 brings three world premieres by Gabriela Lena Frank
14th February 2017
© Mariah Tauger
The residency of Gabriela Lena Frank with the Detroit Symphony will culminate on Friday, February 17, 2017, with the world premiere of her Walkabout: Concerto for Orchestra.
About her new 30-minute work, Frank states: "Walkabout: Concerto for Orchestra is inspired by my travels in Perú, my mother's homeland. Born in the States, I did not begin these fateful trips until my time as a graduate student at the University of Michigan where my teachers encouraged me to answer questions of identity that long persisted for me: What does it mean to be American born yet with such a motley crew of forbearers hailing from Lithuania, China, and Andean South America? For more than twenty years, I've been answering this question, with each piece raising yet more to address."
A live webcast of the repeat performance on Saturday, February 18 at 8:00 pm EST will be available on dso.org/live.
Requiem in Houston
As she completes her third year as Houston Symphony's composer-in-residence, Frank will unveil her Conquest Requiem, to be premiered on May 5, 2017. This 38-minute long, seven-movement multicultural work interweaves traditional Latin and Meso-American texts with a contemporary text by Pulitzer Prize-winning Cuban-American writer Nilo Cruz. The world premiere performance will be led by Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and will feature soprano Jessica Rivera and baritone Andrew Garland.
Tone poem for NYO-USA
Every summer, Carnegie Hall brings together the brightest young musicians from across the country to form the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA). This season, Marin Alsop will conduct these remarkable artists of NYO-USA, and will feature the world premiere of a tone poem by Frank on July 21, 2017 at Carnegie Hall. Following the premiere, Marin Alsop and NYO-USA will then feature this work on their tour in South America.
About Gabriela Lena Frank
Identity has always been at the center of Frank's music. Born in Berkeley, California, to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Frank explores her multicultural heritage most ardently through her compositions. Inspired by the works of Bela Bartók and Alberto Ginastera, Frank is something of a musical anthropologist. She has travelled extensively throughout South America and her pieces reflect and refract her studies of Latin-American folklore, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own.
For specific inquiries about Gabriela Lena Frank, please contact Mattie Kaiser or call 212-254-2100.
