From the Los Angeles Master Chorale:

FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2023

WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL

6 PM — RECEPTION
7 PM — CONCERT
8 PM — DINNER

BUY TICKETS

GALA 2023 will feature the Los Angeles Master Chorale in a one-night-only concert event that highlights Germaine Franco’s distinctive musical achievements and influences, with newly-commissioned arrangements created specifically for this program and heard for the first time. Franco will join the Chorale on stage to perform on percussion, alongside a 17-member orchestra. Special guest soloists include sought-after live and session vocalist Toni Scruggs and emerging young talent Danny Duran. Conducted by Grant Gershon, Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director, and Jenny Wong, Associate Artistic Director, this landmark concert will also spotlight music that makes L.A. culture so unique, including works by Zanaida Robles, Carlos Guastavino, Antonio Estévez and Otilio Galíndez. The program will open with the Chorale’s legendary Surround Sing, with voices enveloping the audience from the highest reaches of Walt Disney Concert Hall, an experience that Alex Ross, writing in The New Yorker, recently described as “shiver-inducing”.

ARTISTIC HONOREE

GERMAINE FRANCO is an Oscar-nominated composer, music producer, percussionist and educator who combines her passion for music with her technical and orchestral expertise across a multitude of projects. Franco is the first woman to score a Disney animated feature film with 2021’s Encanto, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score, an SCL Award for Outstanding Original Score, an Annie Award for Best Music in a Feature, a Grammy Award win for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media (including Film and Television) and a Billboard Music Award for Best Soundtrack.

Germaine co-wrote and produced five of Coco’s six original songs with co-director, Adrian Molina, including “Un Poco Loco” and “Proud Corazón”, and provided additional music. In 2018, Univision celebrated her work as one of “15 Latinas Who Are Changing The World As We Know It,” alongside Rita Moreno and Emma Gonzalez. Franco is an advocate of music education and serves on the Advisory Board for Women In Media and The Neighborhood Music School.

Germaine’s work is heard in concert halls around the world including the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Puerto Rico Symphony, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Philharmonic, among others. Franco holds both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Music from the Rice Shepherd School of Music.