San Francisco Lyric Chorus

I’ve always been a firm believer that hearing a city can be as experiential as seeing a city. It is always a crucial step in my research. I leave my headphones at home and listen to the people, but also stay on look out for local concerts of all musical persuasions. Smaller shows are often the best – I can be inspired by the tunes but also get a snapshot of the community in a more personal way.

Choral groups have often made it to the top of the pile when I plan musical excursions. I’ve noticed that each city I’ve done a guidebook about has a unique relationship to singing. In fact, I was so enamored with my discoveries in Seattle that I wrote a whole sub-section about the choral scene there. (Look up Seattle Peace Chorus, Renaissance Singers, Opus 7 Vocal Ensemble, and Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus next time you’re there.) Perhaps the wide range of vocal styles reflects the variety of types of rain in the Emerald City, but I’ll leave those arguments for another time.

Here in San Francisco there is also passion for singing, but most often I see it centered around diversity, social healing, contrarianism, history. There are so many people in the Bay Area, sometimes it feels like the miniature world Vegas strives to be, but can’t become only through glittering architecture. The multiplicity in this city finds its way into the singing of this city.

I’ve recently been acquainted with San Francisco Lyric Chorus, and like many of my modern musical marvels, I was introduced to them by Jaime Freedman. She is a dear friend, but more than that she has helped assemble most of the Playlists I include in my guidebooks. Each city has a cross-section of styles from little-known to well-known groups, that together give a real impression of the sound of the place. Her playlists are pretty epic (she makes other ones on her popular blog, Always More to Hear.) She is also a singer.

When I had fudged by calendar a few months ago and I found myself romping around the Mission with no particular aim, I gave Jamie a call. She was just about to begin rehearsal, and she was in the neighborhood. Actually, she and the rest of the SF Lyric Chorus were at the pinnacle of the neighborhood, inside Mission Dolores Basilica. I made my way past the old mission and crept into a seat at the back of the nave so I could have a listen. It was wonderful the way this group filled the ornate space with pure sound. Each holiday song was from a different time period, and from a vast array of traditions. Like San Francisco itself, nothing about the program was linear.

…Skip to this spring. The SF Lyric Chorus is putting the final touches on their next concert series. For this program, music director Dr. Robert Train Adams asked the singers to submit tales of their family history so he could assemble of lyrical quilt of their past. French-Canadian Cajun tunes, ‘a spoken geography lesson’ from Austrian-American composer Ernst Toch, a five-part madrigal from William Byrd, an old song about the fickleness of love from a French composer, and a piece about longing for home by Italian Jewish composer Salamone Rossi. It is this last song that was in part inspired by chorus member Jamie, and the part of her family emigrated through Africa via Italy. Each piece honors a different part of the trips our families have taken – the sense of loss, the urgency of leaving, beauty in the world, sea voyages, hard work, and coming back together in a new homeland.

Join this stellar local song troupe this Saturday, May 7, and Sunday, May 8 for two performances of this concert, aptly titled, “Voices of Immigration.” For full concert info, click here, to buy tickets, click here.