The San Francisco Girls Chorus was established in 1978 after founding Artistic Director Elizabeth Appling taught the first girls to sing children’s chorus roles for San Francisco Opera (Pique Dame, 1977), at the request of then Opera General Director Dr. Kurt Herbert Adler. Following the girls' interest in singing, Appling continued the program and formed her artistic vision to form a premiere chorus for girls. What began with 40 singers, a volunteer music director, and a volunteer accompanist grew under Appling's 14-year leadership into an organization with a music faculty of 21 and five full-time staff.
Today the Chorus has a music faculty of 2 full-time and 23 part-time instructors and 10 full-time administrative staff members. Dr. Susan McMane is in her fifth year as Artistic Director; Chorus School Director Elizabeth Avakian is now in her twenty-third year with the Chorus. Each season the Chorus serves nearly 300 choristers from 160 schools in 44 Bay Area cities; 60% of these choristers are San Francisco residents, while others travel from elsewhere in the Bay Area and as far away as Stanislaus County to participate.
SFGC’s music education and performance program is founded on, and aspires to teach, the highest standards of artistic excellence. The Chorus offers challenging and rewarding goals as well as the skills necessary to reach these goals. This fusion of art and skills – such as discipline, self-confidence, teamwork, perseverance, respect for others – can help shape a girl into someone with remarkable qualities and capabilities.
Chorus School: The goal of the Chorus School is to establish the highest possible music standards through teaching and performance experience, and to instill in its student-artists the values necessary to succeed, in music or in any other serious endeavor. The Chorus School is the foundation of the organization's capacity to achieve artistic excellence.
The School teaches a comprehensive choral music training curriculum, moving through four levels of increasing knowledge and vocal skills. Levels I, II, and III are offered both in San Francisco and Oakland. Girls aged 7 to 12 are admitted to the Chorus School on the basis of their aptitude to respond to simple musical instructions; no previous musical training is required to join at elementary levels of instruction. Over 220 girls from 44 Bay Area cities and seven counties participate in the Chorus School.
Chorus School singers receive 160-225 hours of instruction, depending upon level, in rehearsals and in music theory classes during the ten-month school year. Singers at Level II and higher also attend a ten-day residential summer music camp, which combines rehearsals, musicianship classes, and vocal training with dance and drama instruction as well as many recreational activities.
Chorissima and Virtuose: After completing the Chorus School program, girls may audition for Chorissima, SFGC's concert and touring ensemble. Chorissima's goal is to attain the highest possible music standards in performance. A select group of singers who have graduated (“laureatedâ€) from Chorissima make up the Chorus' ensemble Virtuose, which frequently performs a cappella and without a conductor. Participation in Virtuose gives singers a paid opportunity to continue performing challenging choral music.
Highlights of the 2006-2007 season include:
San Francisco Opera: The Girls Chorus has renewed its long-standing collaboration with the San Francisco Opera, filling children’s chorus roles for performances of Carmen in November and December of 2006.
San Francisco Symphony: Choristers learned to sing in “Elvish†for San Francisco Symphony’s performances of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack music in July, 2006; and will join the Symphony for performances of Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust in April 2007.
Voices of Hope and Peace: SFGC released its sixth CD recording, Voices of Hope and Peace, on November 19, 2006. This album of 21st-century music on women's words of hope and peace features a 25-minute major work, Anne Frank: A Living Voice, by Linda Tutas Haugen -- commissioned by the Chorus for its 25th anniversary.