Chamber Music America Life Lessons: Inside the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music

Ray Mark Rinaldi, contributing writer, Chamber Music America Magazine, Vol. 35 No. 3, Summer 2018, p. 38

Gabriela Lena Frank has a theory about why some contemporary classical compositions soar and others sink. And she built an entire school around it.

“I believe that at least half of the so-called unsuccessful compositions out there only miss the mark by a little bit,” said Frank, who has 92 completed works listed on her resume, many commissioned by esteemed soloists and ensembles.

A composer might have assigned the wrong line to the wrong instrument, or built a crescendo that didn’t quite move the crowd—small mistakes, that in Frank’s view, could have been fixed with a simple tool: a reading prior to the premiere where the writer could get feedback from other composers and musicians.  Readings of pieces in development are standard practice for folks who create stage plays and operas, but not for composers who work on the instrumental side of chamber and orchestral music.

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