Gabriela Lena Frank, a Grammy Award-winning composer who made the Washington Post’s list of the 35 most significant women composers in history, visits the School of Music next week for a series of events.
Rachel Calloway, a mezzo-soprano and voice instructor at the University of South Carolina School of Music, has a special appreciation for the music of composer Gabriela Lena Frank. Calloway performed Frank’s music with the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Series, her first high-profile professional engagement.
“When I sang that concert, I was so taken with the expressivity of her music and the power of it. And I was equally taken with her as a person,” Calloway says. “Gabriela is full of energy and passion. She’s a wonderful example of someone overcoming challenges. She was born with significant hearing impairment. She has traveled to Peru to rediscover some the sounds of her heritage there. All of these things combined just made my experience working with her such a powerful one.”
That experience can be shared by the university and Columbia communities next week, when Frank, a Grammy Award-winning composer who made the Washington Post’s list of the 35 most significant women composers in history, visits Carolina for a series of events.
At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday (Dec. 5), the Gabriela Lena Frank Composer Portrait Concert features students and faculty performing her music. At 4:30 p.m. Dec. 7, Duo Cortona, a contemporary music ensemble comprised of Calloway and her husband, Carolina assistant professor of violin Ari Streisfeld, perform music written by composers in Frank’s Creative Academy of Music. Both of the concerts, in the School of Music Recital Hall, are free and open to the public.