American composer and pianist Gabriela Lena Frank was born in Berkeley, California, to parents of widely mixed background: Her mother is of Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and her father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent. A graduate of Rice University in Houston and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Frank has traveled extensively in South America drawing on its folk culture as inspiration for her compositions. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009, she is currently a free-lance composer living in California's Mendocino County, where she founded her own music school, The Creative Academy of Music.

Frank composed Contested Eden in 2019 for the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. It is an elegy to the climate crisis, a reflection on years of fires that devastated the countryside around Frank's home, demonstrating the fragility of life in the climate crisis. Frank calls it a secular elegy, split into two movements: “The first movement is essentially a prayer, and it goes super intimate. It can be played with a string quartet, just four players.“

The second movement, titled “in extremis, uses the full orchestra in a big orchestral swell which breaks, and as it breaks apart, one singing violin line is left up at the top, with commentary from the other instruments". Then, over the next few minutes, it takes its time to wind its way down this one melodic arch before it passes to the violas, to the cellos, to the basses.

According to Frank, the piece ends on a hopeful note, "in tribute to the Eden that's my beloved native state."