Interview with Gabriela Lena Frank
Part Three: On Developing a Piece of Music

Third of an eight-part interview by YoWangdu’s Yolanda O’Bannon

YO: Can you talk about one of your pieces, about how you would develop a piece?

GLF: Well, generally speaking, when I first started composing when I was a student, a teenager, I came up with an idea first and then went and hunted down the players after, and hoped I could find people. And as I went along, people came to me first and said this is what we want, what can you do with it? And I would say yes, and come up with something. And then, as the years go on, it’s kind of a dialogue initially, and people who know my stuff kind of generally understand my style or styles, and what they are probably going to get. Sometimes you’re leftover with ghosts, you know like mystery writers that start losing their magic?

That poor woman, the one who wrote A is for Alibi and B is for Burglars, I feel so bad for her. The first seven are pretty spicy, and then the rest – a lot of hit and misses going on there. And I think the only way she could write something different would be to take a pseudonym. There’s too much pressure on her. So there have been a couple of pieces in my estimation that were subpar, because I couldn’t get away from what I knew that person was hoping for.  And even though those pieces came early enough that just by virtue of doing them, I picked up some new skills, that starts to run out of gas too. By repeating yourself you’re not going to be picking up any more skills. You have to be really actively finding those spaces where you’re going to be able to do something more.

So, now if somebody approaches me, generally they will say something like, we want to commission an orchestra work, we want to commission a choral work, you know they have a genre in mind. Then, my agent, my publisher, my people [laughing], get in there. My people have people. They get in there and the idea is to separate the roles very carefully. I talk about the artistic stuff with the commissioner, who may or may not be the performers, who may be speaking on behalf of the artists. And then the business details about the piece are discussed among the people. That could be stuff that affects me, like length, so that’s a big one. And exact instrumentation, if it’s orchestra. How many flutes do I get, how much percussion do I get? Do I get a harp? Do I get a piano? Do I get the low brasses? How big is the string section? That kind of thing. They may say something like, no solo. We want it to be strict orchestra. They may tell me what other pieces are going to go on the program, which can or cannot be helpful. I mean if you’re thinking about the long-term life of the piece. It can’t be bulletproof just about one thing. So, anyway, you’re given a lot of the business details of it.

Then you have to deal with your knowledge of that orchestra. Are they a good orchestra? Now, the orchestra is going to say, we’re fabulous, but you yourself know something. The Chicago Symphony are pretty good. The New York Phil are pretty good. What is the spirit of these orchestra players? Are they willing to try new things? A lot of players just want to play the Greats. So you’ve got all of this stuff before you even start thinking.