Known for her “bold and bracing” (Baltimore Sun) opera writing, Frances Pollock’s music “pulls no punches and never flinches” (City Paper).
Originally from North Carolina, Frances is inspired by a variety of artists including Dolly Parton, Whitney Houston, Francis Poulenc, Joni Mitchell, Missy Elliot, Stephen Sondheim, Jonathan Dove, and Billy Joel.
Frances’ first opera, Stinney, was workshopped in Baltimore in 2015, where it won a Johns Hopkins Diversity Grant and a Best of Baltimore award. It was presented again in workshop in the 2019 PROTOTYPE festival in New York City. Frances has since written operas for Washington National Opera (What Gets Kept, librettist Vanessa Moody) and Lyric Opera of Chicago/Seattle Opera (Earth to Kenzie, librettist Jessica Murphy Moo). This coming season, Frances is writing for Opera Omaha, San Francisco Symphony, Greenville Light Opera, Colgate University, Baltimore Symphony, and Chautauqua Opera Company. In addition, she is currently developing a cross-disciplinary piece called Salt, with librettist (and wife and best friend) Emily Roller which is in development with the Midnight Oil Collective.
Frances is a fund manager with the Midnight Oil Collective, an accelerator and VC fund aimed at providing artists with early capital needed to develop their work. She is currently completing her doctorate in composition at Yale University.