Gabriela Lena-Frank (1972-Present)

Introduction
Gabriela Lena-Frank was born in Berkeley, California in 1972 and is a composer of a very contemporary form of classical music. She is known as being one of the most significant female composers in history. In her music she likes to explore different aspects of her own personal heritage. Each song is very specific in how it expresses said heritage, and even when she is not composing she still is well regarded as a virtuosic contemporary performer.

Work Analysis
The piece of Lena-Frank's that i wanted to look into was "Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout". This piece sort of perfectly enrapture what I know to be Andean music. The introduction is very reminiscent of native Andean music, and the violins are basically mimic the sound of the woodwind instruments of the Andean area. The music is very compelling and is a nice step away from complete atonality that we have been focusing on in class. The instrumentation of this song is epic and is reminiscent some pieces we have listened to with very large orchestrations. This piece has a very specific reference point of the Andean Mountain area and does an absolutely perfect job of translating that sound into an orchestral being. Sometimes you cannot even tell which instruments are playing because the technique being used to create the sounds on instruments like the violin are so interesting in term of timbre. The main stringed instrumentation references back to latin america, where stringed instruments make up a lot of the very characteristic sound.

Comparisons
I would compare this piece to Symphony No. 4 by Shastakovich but with a latin american edge. This piece sounds like it would be absolutely fantastic to hear played by that large orchestra we saw at the Boston symphony hall. It seems as if this piece could accompany a film very weak, the storytelling through the music is very apparent and is so well done that it is hard to not feel inspired by it.

Observations
I very much enjoyed the music of Lena-Frank, she takes music of today and gives it a personal twist that allows her music to stand alone as something that is very aurally interesting and refreshing to listen to. I learned from this that you often get the best music by putting your most authentic self into it. Gabriela certainly is going to be an inspiration for me moving forward in life.