Premier Ensemble

With stunning range, flexibility, drama, and power, the San Francisco Girls Chorus’s Premier Ensemble stands at the forefront of the world’s youth vocal ensembles. Now celebrating its 47th season, and led by visionary Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe, the Ensemble has crafted an extraordinary sound—at once luminous and commanding—that reveals the unique clarity and force of impeccably trained treble voices.

 Hailed by Gramophone Magazine as a “remarkable tapestry of teenage voices,” SFGC has been a fearless champion of the music of its time since its founding, commissioning more than three dozen works from leading composers including Philip Glass, Susie Ibarra, Richard Danielpour, Aaron Jay Kernis, Gabriel Kahane, Augusta Read Thomas, Lisa Bielawa, and Chen Yi. In 2017, the Premier Ensemble joined the GRAMMY Award-winning Kronos Quartet to record works by nine living composers—including Glass, Bielawa, John Zorn, and Kahane—for the celebrated album Final Answer, released on Orange Mountain Music to critical acclaim.

The accolades speak for themselves: five GRAMMY Awards, four ASCAP/Chorus America Awards for Adventurous Programming, and the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence from Chorus America. Readers of San Francisco Classical Voice named SFGC Best Choral Group in the Bay Area, and its unforgettable 2018 performances of Dido and Aeneas with Voices of Music swept three “Best of the Season” categories, including Best Opera Performance.

Beyond its acclaimed Premier Ensemble, the San Francisco Girls Chorus is a vibrant center for choral artistry and education, training and inspiring young women ages 4–18 to become the next generation of leaders in music. Hundreds of singers from 46 Bay Area cities participate in this internationally-recognized six-level program, called “a model in the country for training girls’ voices” by the California Arts Council.