Almost every music fan knows that the December holiday season is high tide for choral concerts. But what do these groups do the rest of the year?
Only SFCV tracks the winter and spring doings of the Bay Area’s plenitude of choral groups. So if you’ve restricted your choral concert-going to carols, just take a look at the decadent menu of offerings listed here and remember: There are dozens more that just won’t fit.
Sanford Dole Ensemble Premieres
While newly commissioned and composed choral works are fairly common, a couple of Bay Area groups specialize in new music. One of them is the Sanford Dole Ensemble, a professional, chamber-sized group, founded and directed by a composer. The February program features two world premieres written for the ensemble by Peter Scott Lewis and Michael Kaulkin, as well as a local premiere, David Conte’s The Nine Muses.
All New, All Local, Feb.19, 8 p.m., St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, S.F.; Feb. 20, 5 p.m., St. John's Presbyterian Church, Berkeley, $30.
San Francisco Bach Choir:
Bach Faves
If you’re not quite a fan of Bach’s vocal music (meaning, perhaps, that you’re unfamiliar with it), you might want to try out this late-March offering from the San Francisco Bach Choir. Instead of presenting a couple of complete works, the choir shines a light on a number of the magnificent choruses Bach wrote that lie within his more than 200 cantatas.
Less of a greatest hits concert, this is more a cross-section of a major body of underperformed music.
San Francisco Bach's Favorite Choruses March 26, 8 p.m.; March 27, 4 p.m., Calvary Presbyterian Church, S.F., $15-$35.
Chanticleer:
Story of Jesus
In the wake of the composite Mass they premiered two yearsago, Chanticleer presents a series of works illustrating the life of “the boy whose father was God.”
The “musical biography” includes two world premieres, as well as new-to-Chanticleer pieces by John Taverner, Arvo Part, and Mason Bates, among others. If any group can warm up a cathedral’s acoustics, it’s these guys.
The Boy Whose Father Was God, March 26, 8:15 p.m., Cathedral of Christ the Light, Oakland; March 27, 5 p.m., St. Francis Church, Sacramento; March 31, 8 p.m., St. Joseph Cathedral Basilica, San Jose; April 1, 8 p.m., Grace Cathedral, S.F., $20-$44.
California Bach Society:
Brahms and the German Legacy
Choral conductor Paul Flight and I must be on the same wavelength, because he seems to be putting together programs that are no-brainers to recommend. This Cal Bach Society concert, for instance, weds a lot of wonderful choral music by Brahms with the music that inspired him.
Brahms was an early early-music buff, collecting the first scholarly editions of the music of many Renaissance and Baroque composers, so it seems like an obvious move to put his music together with that of his musical forebears, like Heinrich Schütz. It’s not a history lesson, just an evening of fantastic melodies and lively contrasts.
April 29, 8 p.m., St. Mark's Lutheran Church, S.F.; April 30, 8 p.m., All Saints' Episcopal Church, Palo Alto; May 1, 4 p.m., St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Berkeley, $10-$25.
San Francisco Choral Artists:
With Strings Attached
The Choral Artists, a 24-voice chamber choir, joins forces with the esteemed Alexander String Quartet in a program of new music by Paul Seiko Chihara, Michael Gandolfi, and Veronika Krausas and new arrangements of music by Beethoven and Brahms.
May 7, 8 p.m., St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, S.F.; May 14, 8 p.m., St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Oakland; May 15, TBD, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Palo Alto, $20-$35.
Cantare con Vivo:
I, Too, Sing America
Cantare con Vivo explores another classic repertory, African-American spirituals and gospel, with the help of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir. There’s a multimedia part that helps to tell the story of these songs, but with 150-plus voices and a rhythm section, the music threatens to knock down the walls — and not just at Jericho.
May 21, 7:30 p.m., Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church; May 22, 4:00 p.m., First Congregational Church, Oakland, $10-$40.
San Francisco Girls Chorus:
Beyond Boundaries
The San Francisco Girls Chorus also goes in for multimedia —along with staging, lighting, and musical partners the Cypress String Quartet and Sonos Handbell Choir — in a concert that really shows what the girls can do. Chen Yi’s Angel Island Passages, a reprise of a commission from last year, comes with a film by Felicia Lowe. There is also a newly commissioned work by the famous composer Tania Leòn, along with music by Libby Larsen, and much more.
June 9-10, 8 p.m., San Francisco Conservatory of Music, S.F., $18-$35.