Outstanding in the Field

Last Thursday, SFGC’s Artistic Director Susan McMane was invited to join her colleagues Ragnar Bohlin (Director of the SF Symphony Chorus), and Kevin Fox (Director of the Pacific Boychoir Academy) onstage at Davies Symphony Hall with Michael Tilson Thomas, in honor of the three recent Grammy awards we share for the collaborative recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 with the SF Symphony. 

Mayor Gavin Newsom was there with the president of the SF Symphony board and the president of the local chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. In his remarks, the mayor quoted some powerful words of the late, great Jerry Garcia (of the Grateful Dead).  “You do not merely want to be considered the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.”

This phrase leapt out at me from the stage to the back of the hall.  That’s exactly what we try to say, do and be here at SFGC!  Right now we’re in the process of making all kinds of plans and decisions for next year – the programs on our concert series, our budget, our Chorus School and Prep Chorus curricula, our fundraising events, and even the possibility of an exciting international tour! While working within the economic constraints of this recession, we’re planning for programs that will continue to broaden our outreach into the community and deepen the choral music experience for our audiences.  

The SFGC board met last evening, and one item on the agenda was an exercise in developing a unified vocabulary that best describes what we believe about SFGC, and want to convey to the world in all our programs, performances, communications and publications.  One of our board members, who is also an alumna of SFGC, introduced the term “word cloud.”   This was a new expression for me, but it’s clearly what we came up with.

So here’s the official SFGC “word cloud.”  Feel free to pass it on…

accomplished    Transformative

  INSPIRING  artistry

Excellent