This June brings a series of high-profile performances of music by Gabriela Lena Frank, continuing a remarkable year for the composer following her recent Pulitzer Prize in Music and designation as Musical America’s 2026 Composer of the Year.
On June 12 and 13, the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago presents Frank’s monumental Conquest Requiem, with Latin and Spanish text by Nilo Cruz. Led by conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, the performances feature the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus with soprano Jessica Rivera and baritone Andrew Garland. This work is inspired by the true story of Malinche, a Nahua woman from the Gulf Coast of Mexico who was enslaved and given to the Spaniards. Frank and Cruz sensitively draw on Malinche’s story alongside excerpts from the Latin Mass for the Dead and Nahua poetry, creating an ambitious work for chorus, orchestra, and two soloists. Giancarlo, Rivera, and Garland recently recorded the Conquest Requiem with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.
On June 25, the Britt Festival Orchestra and Music Director Norman Huynh present the world premiere of Frank’s Frida y Diego Suite. Drawn from her and Nilo Cruz's acclaimed opera El último sueño de Frida y Diego, the suite draws from the opera's orchestral heart and brings vivid colors and lyrical intensity to the concert hall. These performances follow the extraordinary success of El último sueño de Frida y Diego at the Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago this season.
For more information, please contact Andrew Stein-Zeller.
