San Francisco Girls Chorus Announces 2023-2024 Season
Photo by Tim Hamlin available in high resolution at www.sfgirlschorus.org/press-room.
San Francisco Girls Chorus Announces 2023-2024 Season
Celebrating 45 Years of Empowering Young Women Through Music
Valérie Sainte-Agathe, Artistic Director
November 4 & 5, 2023 – This Is What It Means
SFGC Premier Ensemble Opening Concerts Centering Music by California Women
Co-Presented with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Part of the California Festival
Music by Sarah Gibson (World Premiere), Reena Esmail, Nicolás Lell Benavides, Caroline Shaw, Gabriela Lena Frank, Lisa Bielawa, and Ursula Kwong-Brown
December 11, 2023 – SFGC Winter Concert: Folk Songs of the World with Latin Grammy-Nominee Accordionist Sam Reider at Davies Symphony Hall
March 9 & 10, 2024 – SFGC Premier Ensemble in Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans at Z Space
Music Direction by Valérie Sainte-Agathe & Stage Direction by Céline Ricci
May 2024 – Chorus School Spring Concert at Scottish Rite Masonic Center
Featuring World Premiere by SFGC Composer-in-Residence Sahba Aminikia
May 19, 2024 – SFGC Premier Ensemble with Percussionist & Composer Haruka Fujii at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music
San Francisco Girls Chorus: www.sfgirlschorus.org
Press Room: www.sfgirlschorus.org/press-room
San Francisco, CA – The San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC), led by Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe, announces its 2023-2024 season, which celebrates 45 years of empowering young women through music. 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 women 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 age 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.
Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe says, “What distinguishes SFGC from other youth choirs is the creativity, the innovation, the fact that we are giving our singers the opportunity to show their best in every single situation. All of these traits are on display in this 45th Anniversary Season, as we celebrate the legacy of the San Francisco Girls Chorus by looking towards the future. Not only are we bringing overlooked masterpieces to the 21st century, we are performing cutting edge new works, including commissions written uniquely for us.”
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.
SFGC launches the season with This Is What It Means, two concerts featuring its Premier Ensemble co-presented and performed with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) as part of the statewide California Festival on November 4, 2023 at First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley and November 5, 2023 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The concert program centers the voices of Californian women composers, interweaving instrumental and vocal works by Pauline Oliveros (Tree/Peace), Gabriela Lena Frank (Picaflor Esmeralda from Two Mountain Songs and Canto para California), Reena Esmail (Love of Thousands, SFGC commission 2019), Gabriella Smith (Carrot Revolution), Lisa Bielawa (Opening: Forest from Vireo), and Ursula Kwong-Brown (I See You, I Hear You, I Believe You) with the music of Nicolás Lell Benavides (A Bird Came Down the Walk), Caroline Shaw (Dolce Cantavi), and Hildegard von Bingen (O Virtus Sapientiae). SFGC and LCCE join forces in the world premiere performances of a new work by Los Angeles-based composer Sarah Gibson titled This is what it means, co-commissioned by the two ensembles for the occasion. Gibson's music has been described as "expansive" by the Los Angeles Times, and has been performed by the BBC and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Atlanta, Seattle, and New Jersey Symphonies, and more. Her compositions reflect her deep interest in the creative process across various artistic mediums, especially from the female perspective.
On December 11, 2023, SFGC presents its highly anticipated annual concert at Davies Symphony Hall, SFGC Winter Concert: Folk Songs of the World, bringing together hundreds of singers from the Premier Ensemble, the entire Chorus School, as well as SFGC alumnae. This year’s concert is inspired by folk music traditions from around the world and features acclaimed accordionist and 2023 Latin Grammy nominee Sam Reider as guest artist, combining traditional favorites (including Silent Night), new works, and hidden gems from the holiday choral repertoire. The San Francisco-based Sam Reider has performed, recorded, and collaborated with a range of artists including Jon Batiste, Jorge Glem, Sierra Hull, Laurie Lewis, and Paquito d’Rivera. From his genre-bending acoustic ensemble The Human Hands to his duo collaboration with Grammy-nominated Venezuelan artist Jorge Glem, his unique compositional voice and melodicism runs throughout his eclectic projects.
On March 9 and 10, 2024, SFGC presents its Premier Ensemble in Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans at Z Space, with music direction by Valérie Sainte-Agathe and stage direction by Céline Ricci. This remarkable oratorio from 1716 was written for an all-female ensemble, with all characters both male and female interpreted by women of the Ospedale della Pietà, a girl’s orphanage in Venice where Vivaldi was music director. It is the only oratorio by Vivaldi to have survived.
In May 2024, the Chorus School will showcase singers from Levels 1 through IV at its annual Chorus School Spring Concert at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center, coming together to celebrate their accomplishments from the year individually and as a school. The concert will culminate in a world premiere by 2023-2024 SFGC Composer-in-Residence Sahba Aminikia written specifically for the occasion. Aminikia believes music to be an immersive and transcendent, yet visceral, human experience, and is highly influenced by the poetry of Hafiz, Rumi, and Saadi, as well as traditional, classical and jazz music. The Iranian-born American composer trained under Iranian pianists Nikan Milani and Safa Shahidi, and his first classical teacher, Mehran Rouhani. He later relocated to Russia, where he studied at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory. He received his B.M. and M.M. from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The San Francisco Chronicle has described him as, “an artist singularly equipped to provide a soundtrack to these unsettling times.”
SFGC’s Premier Ensemble’s 2023-2024 season concludes with a collaboration with renowned percussionist and composer Haruka Fujii on May 19, 2024 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The concert of new music will include a commissioned work by Fujii, one of the most prominent solo percussionists and marimbists of her generation. Fujii has won international acclaim for her interpretations of contemporary music, having performed numerous premieres of works from luminary composers, and appeared as a soloist with orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and more. Since 2010, she has performed as an artist of the Grammy Award-winning Silkroad Ensemble, joining a group of international musicians founded by Yo-Yo Ma, and serves as one of the artistic leadership team alongside with the artistic director Rhiannon Giddens. Her interest in percussion was influenced by her mother, noted marimbist Mutsuko Fujii. She studied music at the Tokyo National University, the Juilliard School, and the Mannes College of Music. Fujii previously collaborated with SFGC on the world premiere of the choral opera Tomorrow’s Memories: A Little Manila Diary by Matthew Welch.
In addition, SFGC ensembles will perform throughout the Bay Area in collaboration this season with other organizations and artists including the East Bay Philharmonic, Sunset Music & Arts, Lisa Mezzacappa, and the Amateur Music Network.
Tickets for the San Francisco Girls Chorus’s 2023-2024 season will be available beginning on October 2, 2023 at www.sfgirlschorus.org.
San Francisco Girls Chorus Season Highlights
This Is What It Means
SFGC Premier Ensemble Opening Concerts Centering Music by California Women
Co-Presented with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble
Part of the California Festival
November 4, 2023 at 7:30pm
First Presbyterian Church, 2407 Dana St, Berkeley, CA
November 5, 2023, at 4pm
San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak St, San Francisco, CA
SFGC Winter Concert: Folk Songs
with Latin Grammy-Nominee Accordionist Sam Reider
December 11, 2023 at 7pm
Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA
SFGC Premier Ensemble in Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans
Music direction by Valérie Sainte-Agathe & stage direction by Celine Ricci
March 9, 2024 at 7:30pm & March 10, 2024 at 2pm
Z Space, 450 Florida St, San Francisco, CA
Chorus School Spring Concert
Featuring a World Premiere by SFGC Composer-in-Residence Sahba Aminikia
May 2024
Scottish Rite Masonic Center, 2850 19th Ave, San Francisco, CA
SFGC Premier Ensemble with Percussionist & Composer Haruka Fujii
May 19, 2024 at 3pm
San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak St, San Francisco, CA
Tickets & information: www.sfgirlschorus.org
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 Morris Stulsaft Foundation.
More About The San Francisco Girls Chorus And Chorus School:
Established in 1978, the mission of the San Francisco Girls Chorus is to create outstanding performances featuring the unique and compelling sound of young women’s voices through an exemplary program committed to education and visionary leadership in the development of this art form.
Commissions of new works from the leading composers of our time, collaborations with renowned guest artists, and partnerships with other Bay Area and national arts organizations provide the young women of SFGC with matchless performance experiences among powerful adult role models. In addition to its annual engagements with the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Symphony, recent and current/upcoming artistic partnerships include the San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Film Festival, Opera Parallèle, Kronos Quartet, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, New Century Chamber Orchestra, TEDxSanFrancisco, and Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky. SFGC has also traveled to the East Coast on a number of occasions in recent years for debut concert engagements, including for the 2016 NY PHIL BIENNIAL FESTIVAL at Lincoln Center in collaboration with The Knights orchestra, for SHIFT: A Festival of American Orchestras in April 2017 with The Knights at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, and at Carnegie Hall in February 2018 with the Philip Glass Ensemble, for a sold-out performance that was broadcast around the world by Medici TV.
SFGC's commitment to artistic excellence has been recognized through many awards and 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.
SFGC was founded in 1978 by Elizabeth Appling, who served as Artistic Director until her retirement in 1992. Other Artistic Directors during SFGC's illustrious 40-year history include Sharon J. Paul (1992 - 2000), Magen Solomon (2000-2001, interim), Susan McMane (2001-2012), Brandon Brack (2012-2013, interim), and Lisa Bielawa (2013-2018).
SFGC owns and operates the Kanbar Performing Arts Center, which has become a hub for small to mid-size arts organizations in the Bay Area. In addition to SFGC’s own rehearsal and performance programs, the Kanbar Center provides long-term leased office space to such organizations as American Bach Soloists, Opera Parallèle, Jewish LearningWorks, and the Chinese-American International School, as well as rehearsal space for groups including New Century Chamber Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, Merola summer opera program, and the San Francisco Boys Chorus.
About Valérie Sainte-Agathe, SFGC Artistic Director:
Valérie Sainte-Agathe has prepared and conducted the San Francisco Girls Chorus since 2013, including performances with renowned ensembles throughout the United States and beyond. Through transformative choral music training, education, and performance, Ms. Sainte-Agathe empowers young women and champions the music of today throughout the choral world.
Prior to her time with SFGC, Ms. Sainte-Agathe served as Music Director for the Young Singers program of the Montpellier National Symphony and Opera in France from 1998-2011, and participated in eight recordings with the Montpellier National Orchestra and The Radio France Festival.
In the 2022-2023 season, Ms. Sainte-Agathe celebrated a decade of leadership with the San Francisco Girls Chorus. During her tenure, she has welcomed artistic collaborations with many celebrated guest artists including Chanticleer, Santa Fe Opera, soprano Shawnette Sulker, composer and percussionist Susie Ibarra, GRAMMY-nominated composer Ayanna Woods, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, the King’s Singers, Roomful of Teeth, Bobby McFerrin. She premiered SFGC’s first self-produced and commissioned opera, Tomorrow’s Memories: A Little Manila Diary at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre in June 2023. Her first recording as SFGC’s Music Director, Final Answer, was released on Orange Mountain Music in February 2018, and her second recording, My Outstretched Hand, was released in July 2019. Ms. Sainte Agathe has toured with SFGC’s Premier Ensemble locally and internationally, and will travel with the ensemble to South Africa in July 2024.
Ms. Sainte-Agathe’s artistry stretches beyond the San Francisco Girls Chorus, including joining Philharmonia Baroque as its new Chorale Director in 2022, and a feature in the 2022 book Music Mavens: 15 Women of Note published by the Chicago Review Press. Ms. Sainte-Agathe joined forces with GRAMMY Award-winning Kronos Quartet during its 2021-2022 season to conduct the world premiere of At War With Ourselves - 400 Years of You by Michael Abels and continues to perform this work throughout the U.S. on tour with the ensemble.
Ms. Sainte Agathe’s performance highlights include her Carnegie Hall and Barbican Center debuts with the Philip Glass Ensemble, conducting with Michael Riesman in Glass’s Music with Changing Parts; conducting SFGC for the New York Philharmonic Biennial Festival at Lincoln Center; and collaborating with The Knights for the SHIFT Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. She also served as Choirmaster with Taylor Mac, recipient of MacArthur Foundation's "Genius Grant," for the "Holiday Sauce" production at the Curran Theater in December 2018.