San Francisco Girls Chorus Celebrates 45th Anniversary Season with Annual Gala and Auction on April 26
Photos available in high resolution at www.sfgirlschorus.org/press-room.
San Francisco Girls Chorus Celebrates 45th Anniversary Season with Annual Gala and Auction on April 26
Featuring Guest Speaker Diane Jones Lowrey
Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Common Sense Media and former SFGC Parent
And Guest Artist Silvie Jensen, Mezzo-Soprano & SFGC Alumna
Friday, April 26, 2024 at 6pm
Julia Morgan Ballroom | 465 California St | San Francisco, CA
Tickets & Information
San Francisco, CA – The San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) continues its 2023-2024 season led by Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe, celebrating 45 years of empowering young women, with its Annual Gala and Auction on Friday, April 26, 2024 at 6pm at the Julia Morgan Ballroom (465 California St., San Francisco). SFGC’s goal for the event is to raise $225,000 in support of SFGC’s Music Education Programs and the Elizabeth Avakian Need-Based Scholarship Fund.
This evening of celebration and song will include performances by the GRAMMY® Award-winning SFGC Premier Ensemble and Soloist Intensive, as well as a live auction and Fund-A-Need – an initiative to ensure that every young singer is able to access SFGC’s transformative music education programs. SFGC also welcomes Guest Speaker Diane Jones Lowrey, the Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Common Sense Media, former SFGC Parent, and recently appointed Commissioner on the Commission on the Status of Women in San Francisco, as well as Guest Artist Silvie Jensen, mezzo-soprano and SFGC Alumna.
The 2024 SFGC Gala Committee includes chairperson Sarah Hollenbeck, Laura Lane, Ann Gray Miller, Kim Nakahara, John Sanborn, Leah Fitschen Schloss, Sheila Schwartzburg, Alma Sorensen, and Stephanie Wei.
SFGC Gala Table Sponsors include Ryan and Johanna Aipperspach, Shoshana Berger, Jen Bilik, Ellen and Joffa Dale, Charles Ferguson and Kay Dryden, Leah Fitschen Schloss '85 and Randall Schloss, Carol and Richard Harris, Sarah Hollenbeck and David Serrano Sewell, Alison Huang and Jonathan Howe, Ann Gray Miller, Erin Pettigrew and Matthew Fong, Sheila and Thomas Schwartzburg, Julia Trujillo and Richard Bourgon.
The 2024 SFGC Gala is sponsored by The Julia Morgan Ballroom, Image Orthodontics, and Whistler Vineyards.
Since 1978, SFGC has provided girls and young women the unique opportunity not only to perform at the highest artistic caliber, but also to develop self-confidence, leadership skills, and an awareness of the role of the arts in civic engagement. A leader in the Bay Area and national music scenes, SFGC produces award-winning concerts, recordings and tours; empowers young choristers in music and other fields; and sets the international standard for the highest level of performance and education. SFGC has been recognized through numerous honors including five GRAMMY Awards, four ASCAP/Chorus America Awards for Adventurous Programming, and in 2002, becoming the first youth chorus to receive Chorus America's prestigious Margaret Hillis Achievement Award for Choral Excellence. Each year, hundreds of singers of diverse backgrounds from 45 Bay Area cities ranging in age from four to eighteen participate in SFGC’s programs. The organization consists of a six-level Chorus School training program and the Premier Ensemble, a professional-level chorus of treble voices.
Under the direction of Valérie Sainte-Agathe, SFGC has achieved an incomparable sound that underscores the unique clarity and force of impeccably trained treble voices fused with expressiveness and drama. As a result, the SFGC vibrantly performs 1,000 years of choral masterworks from plainchant to the most challenging and nuanced contemporary works, many created expressly for them, in programs that are as intelligently designed as they are enjoyable and revelatory to experience. The SFGC 2023-2024 season is no exception.
Individual tickets for the San Francisco Girls Chorus 2024 Gala and Auction are available for $450, with table sponsorships starting at $3,000. For more information on the gala, tickets or table sponsorships, please visit www.sfgirlschorus.org/gala or call (415) 863-1752 x306.
About Diane Jones Lowrey:
Diane Jones Lowrey is a global brand marketing and social impact leader with extensive experience guiding the operations of global marketing organizations, building global brands, and forging meaningful partnerships to accelerate growth and impact. Diane is currently the Head of Diversity Equity and Inclusion at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping kids thrive in a world of media and technology. Before Common Sense, Diane held several roles at Levi Strauss & Company, leading global marketing operations for the Levi’s brand. She led diversity marketing, which included Latino marketing for the US and Latin America.
Diane’s community and volunteer service focuses on equity, education, and the arts. She has served as a Trustee of the French American International School in San Francisco, Alonzo King Lines Ballet Board Member, and Communications Chair for the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Association. The mayor appointed Diane as a Commissioner for the Commission on the Status of Women in San Francisco in 2024. Diane attended Mount Holyoke College and the University of Michigan Graduate School of Business Administration. The San Francisco League of Women Voters recognized Diane for her leadership by receiving the Women Who Could Be President Award. She also won a Cannes Lion Award for outstanding public service advertising. In honor of her community service, Diane was appointed to the board of the California First Lady’s Conference on Women by Maria Shriver. Diane lives in San Francisco with her husband and has an adult daughter who will soon finish law school. Diane enjoys exploring the city, discovering new restaurants, international travel, cooking, and engaging with different cultures. A devoted Francophile, Diane frequently travels to France while continuing to struggle through French language classes.
About Silvie Jensen:
Silvie Jensen is a highly sought-after oratorio soloist; she recently made her solo debut at Carnegie Hall, singing Handel’s Messiah with Kent Tritle and Musica Sacra. She sang as Alto Soloist with the San Francisco Symphony in Bach’s Magnificat in 2018, and also made her debuts with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players singing Berio, and with the Mendocino Music Festival, in Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto. She has appeared with Symphony Parnassus at Herbst Theater, singing Mahler’s Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen and Symphony No. 4. She has sung St Matthew’s Passion with Ivan Fischer conducting the Orchestra of St Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, in Sir Jonathan Miller’s St. Matthew Passion at BAM, as well as singing the Israelitish Man in Judas Maccabeus with Clarion Music Society; Handel’s Messiah with Trinity Wall Street and Monmouth Orchestra; in the B Minor Mass with the Springfield Symphony and with Voices of Ascension, with Musica Sacra at Alice Tully Hall, with Sacred Music in a Sacred Space; and with Broadway Bach Ensemble singing Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and Joseph Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne.
She has commissioned and premiered works composed for her, and is a frequent recitalist, appearing in New York at Weill Recital Hall, Steinway Hall, Symphony Space, Americas Society, Liederkranz Club, The Stone, Bonhams, Nicholas Roerich Museum, The Cell Theatre, and at the Ethical Humanist Society in Philadelphia. She has made recordings for ECM, London, Koch, Helicon, MSR Classics, Sono Luminus and Soundbrush Records. Her solo album “Who is Silvie?” is available on iTunes.
More about the San Francisco Girls Chorus: www.sfgirlschorus.org/about
More about Valérie Sainte-Agathe: www.sfgirlschorus.org/valerie-sainte-agathe
The San Francisco Girls Chorus receives support from Grants for the Arts, The Kimball Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Sequoia Trust, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., The Sam Mazza Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, and the Joseph and Vera Long Foundation.