Gabriela Lena Frank knows who she is.

It just takes a while for the Berkeley-based composer to put it into words. During a video interview, she defined herself as “a hearing-impaired, multi-racial Latina, daughter of a South American immigrant, daughter of a Jewish man.”

But that’s only part of the story. Her mother is actually part-Peruvian, part-Chinese, while her father is a Lithuanian from the Bronx. And, yes, Frank is a composer who is hearing-impaired.

“I was born with missing cells in my inner ear,” she explained in a recent phone interview. “It’s not like Beethoven’s deafness, which got worse during his life — mine remains pretty much unchanged.”

Frank wears hearing aids, but continues to play piano, teach, lecture and compose.

Which brings us to her latest work, premiering on Sunday at the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder’s Chautauqua Auditorium. It’s part of a rare evening of music by women composers: “Adoration” by Florence Price, Concerto for Orchestra by Joan Tower (with the revered 85-year-old composer in attendance) and Frank’s “Kachkaniraqmi” (‘I Still Exist”) for string orchestra and string quartet. Festival Music Director Peter Oundjian will conduct.

As Frank noted in that brief self-description, her roots originate in numerous cultures, which provides a variety of opportunities for musical explorations. Yet, this new work and several that preceded it bear a clear Peruvian stamp. The title, “Kachkaniraqmi” (pronounced Catch-can-ir-ack-mi) comes from the Quechua language spoken by the ancient Incas.

The composer’s connection with the South American country began, no surprise, with her mother.

“She came from the (Peruvian) coast,” Frank said. “My parents met and married early, when they were in their 20s (her father was in Peru with the Peace Corps). The family settled in Berkeley, and that’s where I was born and where I first heard music of Peru. We’d go to those concerts when I was 5 and then all the way through high school. I had dark skin, so I looked like a Latina. Race was a backdrop to my existence.”

When she was in her 20s, Frank traveled to South America with her mother, visiting Peru along with other countries. It was not exactly living the dream.

“It didn’t feel like a homecoming,” she admitted. “The food made me sick.”

Frank realized that she was an American, but with roots in Peru. Making those two cultures mesh was going to develop slowly while she continued her music studies at Rice University and the University of Michigan.

“I took time to find who I was — to discover my version of who I was as a Latina, as a Peruvian-American. I wanted to learn the music and the stories as a way to gain self-knowledge.”

The differences between the two musical cultures are stark, of course — starting with the musical instruments. The folk music native to South America produces sounds far removed from European instruments found in classical orchestras. But that fascinated the composer, rather than cause frustration. She became an ethnomusicologist of sorts.

“Doing that, you can be very creative,” she reasoned. “Blending two cultures is never easy, but I used my imagination. I started to think things like, ‘What if a violin and a pan pipe had a baby?’ I found I could do things like that without pandering.”

Her commissioned work for the Colorado Music Festival came from an unexpected source: Harumi Rhodes, second violinist of the internationally respected Takacs Quartet, based on the University of Colorado Boulder campus.

“The invitation came post-pandemic sometime,” Frank remembered. “It would feature the (Takacs) Quartet and a string orchestra. I’ve never written for that combination.”

She explained that the Takacs will perform various functions, as a four-piece unit, as leaders within the orchestra, as individual players, as members of the orchestra.

“The piece is reminiscent of the (popular Baroque Era) concerto grosso,” Frank said.

Her writing emerged as a series of scenic impressions, rather than describing a specific story.

“I always use a story in my writing, but this was sort of different,” she said. “For instance, the first movement (there are four) was composed last. And the title, which translates, ‘I Still Exist,’ also came last.”

But with a dramatic name like that, there has to be some sort of tale being told. Frank agreed.

“All those indigenous cultures that everyone thinks were wiped out — they’re still here. They survived, despite everything. If their ancestors could come back to the present day, they would be amazed!”

And so, with its title of survival against the odds, does this new work represent a story of hope?

“Yes, the music is very triumphal, very celebratory,” the composer enthused. “It is music of people coming together.”