Frank La Rocca is Composer-in-Residence at the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Liturgy in San Francisco. His first commission for the Benedict XVI Institute, Mass of the Americas, has been hailed as "Perhaps the most significant Catholic composition of our lifetimes." (Michael Olbash), and "the best liturgical composition for the Mass since Duruflé." (Michael Linton).

"A Rose In Winter – the life of St. Rita of Cascia", a major work for chorus, orchestra and soloists was awarded an American Prize in composition in 2018.  The CD of Mass of the Americas was recorded by multi-Grammy Award - winning engineer Blanton Alspaugh in New York City, with renowned conductor Richard Sparks.  It debuted at #1 on the Billboard Classical charts, and finished the year in the Top Ten.  The Mexican premiere of Mass of the Americas will take place at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City on October 7, 2025 and will be broadcast on international television.

Born in 1951 in New Jersey, he studied at Yale and at the University of California at Berkeley.  Trained as an academic modernist during his degree studies, La Rocca came to reject this approach as a barrier to authentic musical expression, and spent many years in search of a personal creative language steeped in the good, the true and the beautiful.[6]

His catalog includes works in all genres, with an emphasis on a cappella sacred choral works. At a recent University of Notre Dame conference, "James MacMillan: The Musical Modes of Mary and the Cross", La Rocca presented a talk entitled, “The Apologetics of Beauty: a Musical Theology of the Incarnation”, based upon his choral work O Magnum Mysterium.  In 2024 he gave the Keynote address on Sacramental Beauty at the annual conference of the American Academy of Catholic Scholars and Artists.

He is published by Boosey and Hawkes, Walton Music, Santa Barbara Music and Lumen Verum Music.