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Gabriela Lena Frank

Recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters (May, 2025) and included in the Washington Post’s list of the most significant women composers in history (August, 2017), 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 indigenous Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Gabriela explores her multicultural heritage through her compositions. Inspired by the works of Bela Bartók and Alberto Ginastera, Gabriela has traveled extensively throughout South America in creative exploration. Her music often reflects not only her own personal experience as a multi-racial Latina and diaspora daughter, but also refract her studies of Latin American cultures, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own.

Gabriela founded the award-winning Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. A two-time recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s three-year grant for $600,000, Gabriela has personally mentored nearly a hundred emerging composers at GLFCAM to date, many of whom are significant artists today, and reached hundreds of other music students in GLFCAM’s Distance Learning Program. In 2025, GLFCAM announced a partnership with the University of Pacific (Stockton, CA), officially designated as a Hispanic-serving institution, in order to establish the Inclusive Music Initiative; GLFCAM’s principles would become a meaningful part of student curriculum at Pacific’s Conservatory of Music, California’s oldest music conservatory, bringing in GLFCAM composers and performers as guest teachers.

Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults.

Mr. Stevenson has argued and won multiple cases at the United States Supreme Court, including a 2019 ruling protecting condemned prisoners who suffer from dementia and a landmark 2012 ruling that banned mandatory life-imprisonment-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger. Mr. Stevenson and his staff have won reversals, relief, or release from prison for over 140 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row and won relief for hundreds of others wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced.

Mr. Stevenson has initiated major new anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts that challenge inequality in America. He led the creation of EJI’s highly acclaimed Legacy Sites, including the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. These new national landmark institutions chronicle the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, and the connection to mass incarceration and contemporary issues of racial bias.

Lina González-Granados

Praised for her “rich, heartfelt orchestral sound” (Chicago Sun-Times), “rhythmic vitality” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “raw power” (LA Times), Colombian American conductor Lina González-Granados has distinguished herself nationally and internationally as a singular talent. Her spectacular interpretations of the symphonic and operatic repertoire, as well as her dedication to highlighting new and unknown works by Latin American composers, have earned her international recognition. Most recently, she was named one of Bloomberg Línea’s 100 Influential Latinos of 2022. She is also the recipient of the 2021 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the Third Prize and ECHO Special Award (European Concert Hall Organization) of La Maestra Competition, and the 2020 and 2021 Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award.

After winning the Fourth Chicago Symphony Orchestra Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition, Lina was named the Solti Conducting Apprentice, and served as the assistant to Maestro Riccardo Muti from February 2020 through June 2023. In the fall of 2022, she was appointed Resident Conductor by the LA Opera, a post she will hold through June 2028. She has also previously held positions as the Inaugural Conducting Fellow of the Philadelphia Orchestra, as well as the Conducting fellow of the Seattle Symphony.

Rodney Dorsey

Dr. Rodney Dorsey is Professor of Music at the Florida State University College of Music where he conducts the FSU Wind Orchestra and guides the graduate wind conducting program. Prior to joining FSU, Dorsey served on the faculties of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, University of Oregon, University of Michigan, DePaul University and Northwestern University. 

During his conducting career, Dorsey has led performances at several prominent events including the American Bandmasters Association Convention, College Band Directors National Conference North/Northwest Regional Conference, and the Bands of America National Festival. He is active as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator in the United States. International engagements include Hungary, Canada, and Bulgaria.

Dorsey’s commitment to community has been demonstrated by his participation on the board of directors for Music for All and the Midwest Clinic. He currently serves as the president of the Midwest Clinic.  Dorsey is also an elected member of the American Bandmasters Association. Most recently Dorsey was named a Yamaha Master Educator.