Episode 30: San Francisco Girls Chorus

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San Francisco Girls Chorus Performances

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“To teach them how to be wonderful musicians”

In this episode, our featured voice is Adriana Marcial the Interim Executive Director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus. One of the main goals of The San Francisco Girls Chorus is to teach young women to become wonderful musicians through their extensive music education program. Singing and live performances will be one of the last services and experiences to come back from the Covi-19 pandemic. Let’s hear Andriana tell us how they’re dealing with the pandemic

Adriana Marcial

Adriana Marcial is the Interim Executive Director at SFGC where she leads all operations in order to achieve the artistic and educational goals of the organization. Marcial first joined SFGC as Deputy Director in 2019, drawn to the organization’s focus on exemplary music education and the development and empowerment of young women.

Marcial has an extensive background in dance performance, and believes that exposure to the arts, and a meaningful investment in our young people are integral to a thriving community. Prior to SFGC, Marcial served for four years as Executive Director of Joe Goode Performance Group, a dance theater company based in San Francisco. Marcial is a member of Women of Color in the Arts and is a graduate of Northwestern University.

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.

Under the direction of Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe, the San Francisco Girls Chorus 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 Chorus vibrantly performs 1,000 years of choral masterworks from plainchant to the most challenging and nuanced contemporary works created expressly for them in programs that are as intelligently designed as they are enjoyable and revelatory to experience.

Each year, hundreds of singers from 45 Bay Area cities ranging in age from 4 - 18 participate in the SFGC’s programs. The organization consists of a professional-level performance, recording, and touring ensemble and a six-level Chorus School training program. A leading voice on the Bay Area and national music scenes, the Chorus has produced award-winning concerts, recordings and tours, empowered young women in music and other fields, enhanced and expanded the field of music for treble voices and set the international standard for the highest level of performance and education.

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. Watch and Listen

Donation / Volunteer

Please support the San Francisco Girls Chorus provide world-class music education, inspiring concerts and online education for young women from all across the Bay Area.

Videos

To find out more about the San Francisco Girls Chorus please check out their videos:

About SF GC

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“I think the greater thing, is the aspect of developing the individual and especially young women to have a sense of community, to be around other young women who are supporting them, to be vulnerable in this learning process together, it’s hugely important.”

— Adriana Marcial, Interim Executive Director, SF Girls Chorus

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