My contribution to this Los Angeles Opera Connects seminar for K-12 educators and opera lovers will be an exploration of composer Gabriela Lena Frank and her relationship to Hispanic and Latin American culture, history, and language as well as her orchestral “palette,” the ways in which she paints with orchestral timbres.

Frank’s story as a creative musical artist is also shaped by her low-profound hearing loss, which occurred when she was very young. Her understanding and experience of sound is layered and nuanced through this lived reality.

My talk will look at excerpts from Frank’s Apu (2017, an orchestral tone poem) and Contested Eden (2021), written in the aftermath of the horrific 2020 wild fires that terrorized Californian already living on edge during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Frank’s first opera El Último Sueno de Frida y Diego will have its Los Angeles Opera premiere beginning Nov. 18 through Dec. 9.

For ticket information visit the Los Angeles Opera page.