Thursday, December 9, 2021

SFGC Announces Holiday Program

Program specifics have now been announced for the annual December holiday concert to be presented by the San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC). The title of the program is Sprit of the Season: A Global Celebration of Baroque and Early Music. Like the first concert of the season this past October, this concert will be streamed through the SFGC YouTube channel. The program will be free to watch with a suggested donation of $25. The performance will begin at 4 p.m. on Sunday, December 19.

The guest soloist with be Edwin Huizinga, who specializes in baroque violin and received a Master’s degree in violin performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied between 2006 and 2008. He was also one of the founders of Classical Revolution in San Francisco. He will begin the program with the Ciaccona that concludes Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1004 solo violin partita in D minor. He will also play Bernat Vivancos’ arrangement of the Catalan folk song “El cant dels ocells” (the song of the birds), which was frequently played as an encore by the Catalan cellist Pablo Casals.

As described in the program’s title, the choral offerings will draw upon early selections from both Europe and “south of the border” America. George Frideric Handel will be included with (of course) a selection from his HWV 56 Messiah oratorio. Joined by organist Robert Huw Morgan, SFGC will perform Jeff Tincher’s arrangement of “For unto us a child is born,” which Handel scored for double chorus. Other European composers on the program will be William Byrd, John Dowland, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Jean-Baptiste Lully, and Orlande de Lassus. Composers from “this side of the pond” will include Gaspar Fernandes and Juan de Lienas.

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