Gabriela Lena Frank

Included in the Washington Post's list of the most significant women composers in history, Gabriela Lena Frank has long centered her music around her multi-faceted heritage. Born in 1972 to a mother of Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Frank has been commissioned or performed by all of the major orchestras in the United States including the Philadelphia Orchestra where she served as composer-in-residence from 2018 through the premiere of Picaflor: A Future Myth in 2025.

Her first opera, El último sueño de Frida y Diego with a libretto by her frequent collaborator, the Pulitzer-winning playwright Nilo Cruz, was commissioned by San Francisco Opera and San Diego Opera for the 2022.23 season and subsequently performed by Los Angeles Opera and Omaha Opera in the 2023.24 season. Her opera will see new performances in the 2025.26 season with Chicago Lyric followed by a new stage production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She is currently at work on her second opera.

Frank’s long list of chamber works feature several that have been recognized by the Grammy Recording Academy.

In 2017, the award-winning Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music was founded, a non-profit training institution held on Frank's two rural properties in Boonville, CA for emerging composers. It is the recipient of multi-year support from the Mellon Foundation. In the spring of 2025, Frank was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work is published exclusively by G. Schirmer/Wise Music Classical.