Celebrating Women Composers
Event Information
About this Event
Presented by The Hildegards, Arts for LA, LA Opera Connects and the Women’s Opera Network of OPERA America
Strengthen your ties with your colleagues in Los Angeles - and beyond - and help set the course for a more vibrant, inclusive future. The Hildegards, in partnership with the Women’s Opera Network of OPERA America, LA Opera Connects and Arts for LA, invite you to join us for an intimate conversation with four composers (Laura Karpman, Gabriela Lena Frank, Juhi Bansal and Nia Imani Franklin) making their mark on the classical and film music scenes. Mezzo-soprano - and LA favorite - Suzanna Guzmán moderates the discussion.
This event is open to all. Program is free, but reservations are required.
Seminar is provided safely via Zoom invitation. You can join via computer or telephone.
Discover music from some of our special guests via a Spotify playlist HERE.
Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89873971482?pwd=WmVLajNqYnA0N0wyZlpRYVZzQzhKZz09
BIOGRAPHIES
Laura Karpman
A bold, incandescent talent, composer Laura Karpman creates powerful, imaginative scores that push the boundaries of storytelling. Her award-winning music, spanning film, television, theater, interactive media and live performance, reflects an audaciously creative, prodigious, fresh spirit.
Karpman collaborates with the most creative filmmakers of our time, including Misha Green, Steven Spielberg, Alex Gibney, Kasi Lemmons, Rory Kennedy, Sam Pollard, Laura Nix and Eleanor, Francis Ford and Sophia Coppola. The five-time Emmy winner’s scores span the HBO hit series Lovecraft Country, 2020 Oscar-nominated Walk Run Cha-Cha, the Discovery Channel docuseries, Why We Hate, Miss Virginia, starring Uzo Aduba, the Netflix romantic comedy, Set It Up, Sony’s Paris Can Wait, starring Alec Baldwin and Diane Lane, Lionsgate’s The Cotton Club Encore, Fox Searchlight’s Step and Black Nativity, starring Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett and Jennifer Hudson, the drama series Underground, Sony’s L.A.’s Finest, Peabody award-winning series Craft in America, and Showtime’s Sid and Judy.
Karpman received a Critic’s Choice award for her song, Jump, co-written with frequent collaborators Raphael Saadiq and Taura Stinson, sung by Cynthia Erivo. Her animated work includes Sitara, directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, executive produced by Darla Anderson and Gloria Steinem, released by Netflix. Her celebrated scores for interactive media include Guardians of Middle Earth, Everquest 2, Kung Fu Panda 2, Project Spark, Kinect Disneyland Adventures, and Untold Legends Dark Kingdom.
Across concert halls, Karpman is well known for her Grammy award-winning album, ASK YOUR MAMA, a multimedia opera based on the iconic cycle of poems by Langston Hughes. For this Carnegie Hall commission, Karpman collaborated with The Roots, soprano Jessye Norman, performer De’Adre Aziza and jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon. Other notable works include All American, commissioned and performed by The Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl; Brass Ceiling, commissioned and recorded by The U.S. Army Band, and And Still We Dream, commissioned by Lyric Opera of Kansas City honoring 100 years of suffrage; Wilde Tales, commissioned by Glimmerglass Festival; Balls, an opera chronicling Billie Jean King’s 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match with words by NY Times writer Gail Collins; and a pandemic opera for Opera Theatre of St. Louis with words by Taura Stinson.
A fierce champion for inclusion in Hollywood, after founding the Alliance for Women Film Composers, Karpman became the first American woman composer inducted in the music branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences, and was subsequently elected to be the first female governor of the music branch. During her short time as governor, Karpman has made indelible strides, advocating for Academy membership for dozens of underrepresented composers and songwriters, as well as spearheading the Academy Women’s Initiative. Her leadership in creating opportunity and standing up for inclusion is unparalleled.
Karpman is an advisor for the Sundance Film Institute and on the faculty of the USC Film Scoring Program and the San Francisco Conservatory. She received a doctorate from The Juilliard School where she studied with 20th century icon Milton Babbitt.
She lives and works in her beachfront home in Los Angeles with her wife, composer Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum, their son and two dogs.
Gabriela Lena Frank
Currently serving as Composer-in-Residence with the storied Philadelphia Orchestra and included in the Washington Post's list of the 35 most significant women composers in history, identity has always been at the center of composer/pianist Gabriela Lena Frank's music. Born in Berkeley, California (September, 1972), to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Gabriela explores her multicultural American heritage through her compositions.
In 2017, Gabriela founded the award-winning Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, a non-profit training institution held on her two rural properties in Boonville, CA for emerging composers from a vast array of demographics and aesthetics.
Juhi Bansal
“Radiant and transcendent”, the music of Juhi Bansal weaves together themes celebrating musical and cultural diversity, nature and the environment, and strong female role models. Her music draws upon elements as disparate as progressive metal, Hindustani music, the spectralists and musical theatre tradition to create deeply expressive, evocative sound-worlds. As an Indian composer brought up in Hong Kong, her work draws subtly upon both those traditions, entwining them closely and intricately with the gestures of western classical music.
Current projects include Waves of Change, a digital experience on womanhood, identity and clash of cultures inspired by the story of the Bangladesh Girls Surf Club; and Edge of a Dream, an opera about Ada Lovelace, daughter of infamous poet Lord Byron and a 19th Century pioneer in computing commissioned by Los Angeles Opera. Recent seasons have included commissions from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Beth Morrison Projects, New York Virtuoso Singers, Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre, the Oakland East Bay Symphony, AIDS Quilt Songbook 20th Anniversary project and more. Her music is regularly performed throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia and available on the Naxos, Albany and Roven Records labels.
Nia Imani Franklin
Nia Imani Franklin is a singer, songwriter, and music composer. In 2015 she completed her undergraduate degree in Music Composition at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. She then attended The University of North Carolina School of the Arts where she completed the music composition program to earn her Master’s degree in 2017. During her tenure at Lincoln Center, Nia gained additional knowledge and experience as an educator in the field of the arts.
On September 9, 2018, Nia was crowned Miss America 2019 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In April 2019, Nia founded Compose Her - an initiative that seeks to empower women in music. She has performed with orchestras such as the Dallas Symphony, and received commissions from private institutions, as well as individual performers. As a black female composer, Nia understands the need to embrace gender diversity and racial diversity in the world of music. As the founder of Compose Her she aims to encourage more young women to explore music composition through workshops and panel discussions.
Suzanna Guzmán
Suzanna Guzmán- Emmy Award winning tv host, radio host, co-director of the award winning: The Opera Company (TOC) at LACHSA, and mezzo soprano. Highlights of this season include: 2020 EMMY Award LIVE EVENT 60th Annual L.A. County Holiday Celebration for PBS. March 2020, she sang Donna Rosa in Catan’s Il Postino with Opera Santa Barbara, in world premiere of Eric Whitacre’s Gift of the Magi with the L.A. Master Chorale and as Marcellina in the 12-hour nonstop Bliss by Ragnar Kjartansson with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Fluxus Festival and is a member of The Industry Opera's The Company. For over 30 years, Suzanna has appeared as a principal artist with orchestras and opera houses around the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, Dallas Opera, Opera de Genéve and San Diego Opera, and at present holds the record for most performances by a Principal Female Artist with Los Angeles Opera. Listen to her weekly radio broadcast Sunday Evening Opera on K-Mozart 1260 AM and streaming on KMozart.com
