Local Vocal: Celebrating Our Musical Bay Area

Join us in celebrating our own artistically vibrant Bay Area, with a program featuring music by both well-known and up-and-coming local composers. We are excited to present Winging Wildly, a three-movement setting of poems about birds by the Bay Area’s best-known composer of choral music, Kirke Mechem. Our concert will also include selections from Mark Winges’ mystical Missa Diapente and Gabriela Lena Frank’s striking Ccollanan Maria— a work based on a traditional religious tune from Cuzco, Perú, the original capital of the Inca empire in the 15th century (with both Spanish and Quechuan text). We are also proud to sing several works exploring Californian history, culture, and natural wonders; including David Conte’s “Facing West,” third in his Whitman Triptych cycle, commissioned in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge; and Frank’s San Joaquin, a setting of San Francisco poet Bill Everson’s text about Yosemite. Other Bay Area-centric works on the program include San Francisco Conservatory of Music composer Joseph Stillwell’s lovely O nata lux, and Oakland-based Sanford Dole’s humorous Dance Steps.

Join us prior to each concert for a panel discussion with some of these talented local composers!

Saturday, May 16th, 8 PM 

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church

1111 O’Farrell (between Gough & Franklin) 

San Francisco

pre-concert panel discussion with several of the composers at 7:15pm

Sunday, May 17th, 4 PM

St Mark’s Episcopal Church

2300 Bancroft Way (at Ellsworth)

Berkeley 

pre-concert panel discussion with several of the composers at 3:15pm