The award-winning Young Women’s Chorus of San Francisco returns to Old First Concerts for its beloved annual Carols by Candlelight performance. Start your holiday season with this exquisite candle-lit concert, presenting traditional carols heard alongside original seasonal works by Eric Tuan and movements from Shawn Kirchner’s American Folk Oratorio The Light of Hope Returning, accompanied by violin, cello and alto sax.
The Young Women’s Chorus is the premier ensemble of the Young Women’s Choral Projects of San Francisco. The Chorus, conducted by Interim Artistic Director Dr. Martín Benvenuto, is comprised of singers ages 12-18, and has been praised for its beauty of sound, stellar musicianship, and dynamic programming. Acclaimed in the American Record Guide for its “refined and beautifully controlled singing,” the Young Women’s Chorus has also won many competitive, national awards including the American Prize in Choral Performance; the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence, the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award from Chorus America and American Composers Forum; and the ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award. Recent activities include a debut performance at Carnegie Hall in 2018, concert tours to South Africa (2109) and to France (2022), the premiere of the opera Abraham in Flames in 2019, and performances with the London Philharmonia Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony. Performing repertoire from early music to contemporary selections, the Chorus annually performs a professional series of concerts in the Bay Area, and commissions new works by leading composers.