Magen Solomon, Artistic Director

Past Season:
2004 - 2005 Subscription Concerts

What Sweeter Musick: Favorites From the Last 20 Years

Join us for singers’ and audience’s most-loved holiday music from SFCA’s first 20 years! Presenting a wide range of traditional and innovative seasonal music from the treasury of beloved tunes and texts. Works by Britten, Crabtree, Dawson, Gabrieli, Howells, Kverno, Leighton, Mueller, Nixon, Tallis and others.

Sunday, December 12, 2004; 4 PM
Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church Oakland

Friday, December 17, 2004; 8 PM
Church Of St. Gregory Nyssen San Francisco

Saturday, December 18, 2004; 8 PM
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church Palo Alto

20 Going on 21: A New Century of Choral Music

As we celebrate our 20th season, we pause to honor the many composers whose music has enriched our lives. This concert features some best-loved traditional pieces and new music written for the occasion. Well-loved works such as Barber’s Reincarnations, Debussy’s and Hindemith’s Chansons, Thompson’s Alleluia, and Flower Songs by Britten mingle with Stanford’s beloved Beati quorum via; Wilhelm Stenhammar’s dreamy Garden of the Seraglio, set in the courtyard of a Turkish palace; and selections from Rautavaara’s riveting Lorca settings.

Two world premieres herald the 21st century: Marin composer Maia Aprahamian’s There shall come forth..., on text from Isaiah; and Charles Griffin’s Rekviem, on a text by Anna Akhmatova. From another Bay Area composer, Roger Nixon, is his rarely heard Visions on a text by William Wordsworth.

The singers also pay tribute to the rich heritage of African-American spirituals with beloved and familiar works by Dawson, Hogan, and Still.

Saturday, March 19, 2005; 8 PM
Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church Oakland

Friday, April 1, 2005; 8 PM
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church Palo Alto

Saturday, April 2, 2005; 8 PM
Church Of St. Gregory Nyssen San Francisco

On Wings of Song

In a program filled with joy and lyricism, we celebrate music’s power and beauty with “music about music”: Britten Hymn to St. Cecilia, Carter Musicians Wrestle Everywhere, Elgar There is Sweet Music, Finzi My Spirit Sang All Day, Sametz I Have Had Singing, Vaughan Williams Silence and Music, and Renaissance works by Goudimel, L’Estocart and Sweelinck.

Eight premieres are on the program, 3 by winners of our first nationwide New Voices Competition, and 5 premieres from local composers---Bay Area luminary Maia Aprahamian, our 2005 Composer-in-Residence; Choral Artists’ discovery Robin Estrada, a recent SF Conservatory graduate; John Kelley, winner of G. Schirmer’s 1997 Young Americans Choral Competition; Jerry Mueller, professor of music at City College; and Martha Stoddard, music teacher in San Francisco and Artistic Director of the Oakland Civic Orchestra.

Britten Hymn to St. Cecilia, the major work on the program, is a 3-part a cappella work for choir and 5 soloists. The music and lyrics are spiritual and innocent yet at the same time sensual, and even erotic in places. The text consists of poems by W. H. Auden. Auden’s muse, Cecilia, was a real person and is regarded as the patroness of musicians. An account of her life is found in “The Second Nun’s Tale” in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, drawn from the 13th century Golden Legend, a mediaeval book of ecclesiastical lore.

Altogether, it’s a program that shows just how much of a Bay Area treasure the Choral Artists have become in 20 years!

Saturday, June 18, 2005; 8 PM
Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church Oakland

Friday, June 24, 2005; 8 PM
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church Palo Alto

Saturday, June 25, 2005; 8 PM
Church Of St. Gregory Nyssen San Francisco