Gabriela Lena Frank, visiting guest composer, spent this past week exploring DePauw's campus and the School of Music. Frank has always been attached to the formation of identity. She comes from a diverse background: her mother holds Peruvian-Chinese roots and her father is of Lithuanian-Jewish linage.
“Someone with a background like mine, it is more the norm than not. We grew up speaking English and eating weird food,” Frank said. Cultural diversity was not a catch phrase during her childhood--her friends were Jewish, half Chinese/half Black, half Vietnamese/half French, and/or raised by a single parent. This was her neighborhood, this was her world, and anything was possible.
As a child growing up in the Berkeley, Calif. area in the 1970s and 1980s, Frank was greatly influenced by being Peruvian music and the street artists moving into the area from South and Latin America. It was through these outlets that she discovered music.
Through the power of creative and unique Peruvian music, Frank was able to feel connected to her mother, others and herself.
“I would see my mother get very happy,” she said. “There was something about seeing other people that looked like her that made a big impression on me, so it was special to me in that way.”
Music is where she felt most comfortable exploring herself and becoming proud of herself.
Her identity crisis didn't take place until she was in high school feeling the politics of affirmative action. Everything Frank had creatively produced, without scholarship or outside help, was at question.
“Suddenly people were looking at me and asking, ‘did you deserve the success that you have?’” she said. “These kinds of questions begin to hit you in high school because you don't have the power that an adult has of self determination.”
Frank continues to exercise music as a gateway to politics, identity and culture. A pianist and composer, she has been commissioned by the Houston Symphony and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra to perform this spring in both cities.
While on campus, Frank coached numerous music classes, spoke in classroom visits, lead rehearsals, performed concerts and had free time with students.
“I’ve met a lot of people, heard a lot of music and they've been preparing very well. It's been pretty terrific,” she said.
When asked what advice she would give to college students working towards a dream, she suggested to “volunteer your services and work for nothing.”
Acknowledging that exhaustion is part of the process, “you must grab all experiences-you will acquire, the skill sets you need when you are launched out into the big bad world,” she said. She smiled from ear to ear. “You can learn from others learning.”
Frank recently got married and purchased a farm in the redwoods of the California wine country. She is planning on raising Peruvian alpacas while composing and collaborating with old friends.