Biography
Frank La Rocca is Composer-in-Residence at the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, the first to hold the post, and the composer of the Mass of the Americas. His catalog spans every genre, with its center in a cappella sacred choral music, and his work has been sung from the National Shrine in Washington to the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
The Mass of the Americas and the Institute
Commissioned by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone in 2018 as a twinned tribute to Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Immaculate Conception, the Mass of the Americas was the first Mass composed for St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco since its dedication in 1971. Cappella Records' recording, produced by the multi-Grammy-winning Blanton Alspaugh with Richard Sparks conducting, debuted at number one on the Billboard Traditional Classical chart and finished 2022 in its annual top ten. Archbishop Cordileone celebrated the Mass at the Basílica de Santa María de Guadalupe in October 2025, and the Institute's Project Guadalupe 2031 is building new celebrations toward the 500th anniversary of the apparitions.
His other commissions for the Benedict XVI Institute include the Requiem for the Forgotten, the Messe des Malades, the Missa Sancti Juniperi Serra, and the Missa Pange Lingua, written for the Mass that opened the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage in 2024. The Cappella recording of the Requiem and the Messe des Malades debuted at number two on the same chart. He is now writing a Requiem for Pope Benedict XVI for 2027, the centenary of Benedict's birth.
Formation
Born in Clifton, New Jersey, in 1951 to a Sicilian father and a Ukrainian mother, he took his bachelor's degree at Yale in 1973 and his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley in 1981, studying with Andrew Imbrie, Olly Wilson, Edwin Dugger, and John Mauceri. Andrew Porter singled out his String Trio in The New Yorker in 1981, in a column on six months of new music around San Francisco Bay. Trained as an academic modernist, he came to see that approach as a barrier to authentic expression and spent years searching for a personal language. The works of those years, the Divertimento, Crossing the Rubicon, and the string quartet Precipice, trace the search.
His conversion to Christianity in 1995 and return to the Catholic Church in 2010 changed what he wrote. Exaudi, on the seven penitential psalms, was the first sacred work; an Ave Maria followed his return. Asked why listeners call his music luminous, he answers that it is the sound of spiritual sorrow transformed by grace.
Teaching and recognition
He taught composition and theory at California State University, East Bay for more than thirty years and is Professor Emeritus there. He was a founding member, executive director, and later artistic director of Composers, Inc., the San Francisco new-music series founded in 1984 that presented living American composers until its final concert in 2019, teaches a summer course at St. Patrick's Seminary and University, and serves on the faculty of the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music. His talk "The Apologetics of Beauty: a Musical Theology of the Incarnation," on his O Magnum Mysterium, was given at the University of Notre Dame's James MacMillan conference, and he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Catholic Scholars and Artists, where he gave the 2024 keynote on sacramental beauty.
His music has been performed across Europe and in China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and Uganda, by ensembles including the California Symphony, the Oakland Symphony, the Alexander String Quartet, Lumen Valo, the Artists Vocal Ensemble, the Cathedral Choral Society, the San Francisco Girls Chorus, and the Prague Radio Choir and Orchestra; his Diffusa est gratia was toured by the London Oratory School Schola Cantorum. In 2023 he taught alongside Sir James MacMillan at the Catholic Sacred Music Project's Composition Institute, where eight young composers wrote new hymns for Corpus Christi.
His debut disc, In This Place (Enharmonic Records, 2013), reached the top ten in classical sales on Amazon and was a Critic's Choice at American Record Guide. He is published by Boosey & Hawkes, GIA, Walton Music, Santa Barbara Music, and his own imprint, Lumen Verum Music.
Honors
- 2024Keynote address on sacramental beauty
American Academy of Catholic Scholars and Artists
- 2022Ten best classical albums of the year, Ted Libbey
For the Mass of the Americas recording; Billboard Traditional Classical chart, number one
- 2018The American Prize in Composition
For A Rose in Winter: The Life of St. Rita of Cascia
- 2018Composer-in-Residence, Benedict XVI Institute
First holder of the post
- 2014ORTUS International Choral Composition Competition
Winner, for the Miserere
- National Endowment for the Arts Composer Fellowship
Also a California Arts Council Artist Fellowship
- ASCAP Young Composers Award
And a Special Commendation in the ASCAP/Nissim Orchestral Competition
- Grants and commissions
Foundation for Sacred Arts, Young Women's Chorus of San Francisco, ASCAP Foundation, USC Thornton Chamber Singers, Vanguard Voices, London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, Cois Cladaigh, the Madrigirls of Glasgow
Affiliations
