San Francisco Girls Chorus

Founded in 1978 The San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) currently engages 400 girls age 6-18 in its after school choir programs and, as a featured performance at the 2009 Presidential Inauguration attests, it is one of the most artistically accomplished and renown youth choirs in the country. The organization demands a lot of the girls who audition and then are accepted into its multi-tiered music education and performance programs. Every singer attends classes 2-4 times a week after school and the teenagers in the highest level chorus perform throughout the year with the region’s foremost arts organizations including the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera and other Hewlett grantees including Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the Joe Goode Dance troupe. The students learn to sing a diverse repertoire and have released recordings of their work in a variety of musical traditions and genres. Over the past grant period the SFGC successfully developed an in-school music program in one San Francisco elementary school and with renewed support will expand this program to two schools in the East Bay. The company, which owns its own rehearsal facility and rents out office and practice space to several other arts organizations, is in strong financial shape and will use renewed support to grow its board and continue to raise its visibility as one of the world’s premier youth choruses by touring more frequently around the country and internationally as well.