JAMES STRECKER: What are the most important parts of yourself that you put into your creations?
GABRIELA LENA FRANK: I am known for frequently exploring my heritage which still astounds me in how globe-spanning it is. My ancestors were certainly a wandering lot, seeking out economic opportunity and cultural safety and I think this is a quintessentially human story. Hence, my history is what I consider among the most important parts of myself to put into my music.
JS: What causes you to compose or create as you do? Is it because you play a specific instrument, for instance?
GLF: I am a pianist and for the earliest years of my composing, most of my compositions indeed featured the piano. Then, even when I moved away from the piano, for a while, even when I wrote for other instruments, they carried a distinct “piano accent.” It took a while before I could absorb the native tendencies of each instrument to tell the larger stories of my multicultural heritage, my concerns with the climate crisis, and so forth.
JS: What are your biggest challenges as a creative person?
GLF: Oh dear, there are simply not enough hours in the day! Protecting my creative time for all of my projects is quite challenging.
JS: What are the hardest things for an outsider to understand about your life as a person working in the arts?
GLF: It might be how much we artists draw our sense of self, our self-esteem, our well-being from our artistic practice. When it doesn’t go well, we feel dreadful. When we can’t find a regular habit, we feel out of balance. When it does go well, we feel great satisfaction but then there’s hunger for more. The closest analogy I can find is how athletes feel — It’s hard for athletes to retire, for instance, as they self-identify so much with their sport. Artists have a similar relationship to their work.
JS: Let’s talk about the state of the arts in today’s society, including the forms in which you create. What specifically gives you hope and what specifically do you find depressing?
GLF: Since I started my Academy, I’ve been really seeing through the eyes of the wonderful composers who have come through our small non-profit. On the one hand, I see the challenges before them including an uncertain economy and the climate crisis which has been touching more and more parts of the world in tangible ways. I am very concerned for their futures and their safety. On the other hand, I’m continually blown away by not just their talent, but their humanity and willingness to engage with the world in the spirit of citizenship. Alongside that, I’m seeing much more interest in diverse voices — demographically and aesthetically — in our industry. This gives me great hope.
JS: What new works are you working on at present?
GLF: I am finishing up a string quartet for the wonderful Fry Street Quartet while also working on a 45-minute symphonic work for the Philadelphia Orchestra called Picaflor (Hummingbird) based on creation myths of Latin America. In the back of my head, I’m beginning to search for ideas as well for a new orchestral song cycle with texts by scientist and birder Drew Lanham for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
JS: What do you yourself like about the music you create?
GLF: I know that music originates with me, but what I appreciate so much about my music is how, over time, they cease to be my music and belong to the performers. While I grow so much through the act of creating each work, my performers reveal even more of the music — more than I had ever dreamt — through their interpretations. That’s a wonderful gift.