TESTIMONIALS

From two new members as of Spring 2019:

“Recently a great stress vanished, flew off my shoulders, but for a while I felt like I had five finals impending on a single day and if I failed I’d be forced into the army, or a monastery, or maybe purgatory. What was my task you may ask? It was performing three classical pieces with the San Francisco City Chorus…I joined at the latter part of January and it was the start of my agony and struggles interspersed with meeting nice people, learning to love the music that I desperately was trying to learn, and having success one measure at a time…The weekly rehearsals were not enough for me to learn the music. The chorus website provided videos of the pieces and for one of the pieces the separate parts were available. Further, our tenor leader, Laura Kee, sent us piano recordings of the tenor parts. They were a godsend. Further we had print outs to help us in the pronunciation of German and Latin. Oh, did I tell you what we sang? We sang Franz Schubert’s Miriam’s Song of Triumph, Felix Mendelssohn’s Psalm 13 from Drei geistliche lieder, and Alexander Gretchaninov’s Missa Festiva, Op. 154. I can barely say those titles much less sing them. Did you notice that one of the pieces was in English, the other in German, and one in Latin? I spent hours just saying the foreign words, or I should say trying to say those foreign words. I don’t think I will ever be able to say German words properly. And then I spent many more hours trying to sing the right notes at the right time. Somehow in the last few weeks it started to fall in place. From not being able to sing at all, for real, I was able to struggle through the entire three songs. And then came the night of the performance. It was wonderful. I felt like I was Pavarotti or better. Not like I was good, but I didn’t totally ruin it for my fellow singers, Laura to my left and Alan to my right. I basically survived and endured so it was good. I was as good as I could be. What else can you ask for? I’m so glad that I took on this challenge.” - Bernie

“My wife and I joined SF City Chorus in early January of 2019, right at the beginning of rehearsals for the Spring program. We were fairly nervous, having come to choral singing relatively late in life. We are certainly not the most experienced singers you will ever meet. Lots of folks in the group seem to have been doing this for quite a while, some since childhood. When we all got together to lift our voices in song, the sound was glorious! Everyone was so welcoming and kind, we were made to feel right at home and eventually, part of the family. We were certainly very challenged by the material, but we learned it, performed it, and had an absolutely marvelous time. We received lots of support and encouragement from the other group members and from Larry, our artistic director/conductor and John, our keyboard accompanist. We are learning a lot about singing and music, have made some wonderful new friends, and get to spend quality time with people who love music as much as we do!” - Kevin