Composer marshals a commissioning project for beleaguered performers [San Francisco Chronicle]

April 29, 2020
by Joshua Kosman

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, performing opportunities dried up for musicians around the country. But composer Gabriela Lena Frank realized that she had a resource she could deploy to help out: a Rolodex full of young, gifted composers ready to pitch in.

They had come through the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, a training residency for young artists that Frank and her husband have run for three years on their rustic property in Boonville (Mendocino County). And they were just waiting for her call.

“I’m lucky to have some financial security now, but I remember how shaky my early years in this field were,” Frank said in a recent phone interview with The Chronicle. “So I made a rather sudden decision that I wanted to do something, and I realized I was sitting on this army of talent.”

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