Date/Time
Date(s) - April 7, 2017
8:00 pm - 10:00 pm -
Location
San Francisco Symphony Chorus Davies Symphony Hall
One of America’s most distinguished choruses, the 152-member San Francisco Symphony Chorus—which celebrated its 40th anniversary during the 2013-14 season—is known for its precision, power, and versatility. Led by Chorus Director Ragnar Bohlin, the Chorus performs more than twenty-six concerts each season and is comprised of 32 professional and 120 volunteer members. San Francisco Chronicleclassical music critic Joshua Kosman recently praised the Chorus for its “welcomed blend of robust vigor and precisely shaded transparency.” Most recently, the SFS Chorus can be heard along with MTT and the SF Symphony on the November 2015 SFS Media release of Beethoven’s Mass in C major. Prior to that, members of the chorus were featured on the Symphony’s complete concert recording of Bernstein’s score for West Side Story, released in June 2014 and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
Performances with the San Francisco Symphony in the 2016-17 season include Verdi’s Te Deum in September and Allegri’s Miserere in October (a first SFS performance), both conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. In January 2017, the chorus performs along with the Orchestra in MTT’s semi-staged version of Mahler’s Das klagende Lied. The Chorus performs with Herbert Blomstedt in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Joana Carneiro in John Adams’s The Gospel According to the Other Mary (a first SFS performance), and Charles Dutoit in Berlioz’s Requiem. The Chorus presents a solo concert in April 2017 that features Orff’s Carmina burana and David Conte’s Invocation and Dance. Other appearances during the year include members of the Chorus joining the Orchestra in a live accompaniment to Stanely Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and women of the Chorus perform during the Día de los Muertos community concerts. The SFS Chorus concludes the season with the SF Symphony in Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, conducted by MTT.
During the recent 2015-16 season, the Chorus appeared with the SF Symphony in Haydn’s Mass in D minor, Lord Nelson led by Sir András Schiff, Michael Tilson Thomas’s semi-staged production of Bernstein’s On The Town, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, led by MTT and featuring soprano Karina Gauvin and mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor. Ragnar Bohlin and the SFS Chorus performed a solo concert in May 2016 that featured Fauré’s Requiem, along with Brahms’s Fest- und Gedenksprüche and Mason Bates’s Mass Transmission for chorus and organ. In February 2016, Mr. Bohlin and the Chorus curated a pair of performances in SoundBox, the SFS’s experimental performance venue located in the backstage of Davies Symphony Hall. Titled Transcendence, the sold-out performances featured Arvo Pärt’s Te Deum, along with works by Tormis, von Bingen, Monteverdi, and Mahler. Members of the Chorus subsequently appeared on the March SoundBox programs in Perotin’s Sederunt principes, led by Michael Tilson Thomas.