This Is What It Means

Co-presentation with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble as part of the inaugural California Festival.

Left Coast and the San Francisco Girls Chorus team up to present a program which centers the voices of Californian women composers at the California Festival.

We interweave instrumental and vocal works by Pauline Oliveros, Gabriela Lena Frank, Reena Esmail, Gabriella Smith, Lisa Bielawa, and Ursula Kwong-Brown with the music of Nicolás Lell Benavides, Caroline Shaw, and Hildegard von Bingen. The two ensembles join forces to premiere a new work written for the occasion by Sarah Gibson.

Program includes:

Sarah Gibson - “This is What It Means,” World Premiere, co-commission by SFGC and LCCE

Ursula Kwong-Brown - “I see you, I hear you”

Gabriela Lena Frank - “Picaflor” from Two Mountain Songs

Gabriela Lena Frank - Canto para California

Lisa Bielawa - “Forest” from Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch’s Accuser

Nicolás Lell Benavides - "A bird came down the walk" (Pathways mentor)

Gabriella Smith - Carrot Revolution

Pauline Oliveros - Tree/Peace

Caroline Shaw - “Dolce cantavi”

Hildegard of Bingen - “O Virtus Sapientiae”

Gabriela Lena Frank - Zapatos de chincha

Reena Esmail - “The love of thousands”

Photo by Bonnie Rae Mills

November 4th, 2023 at 7:30 PM
First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley
2407 Dana Street, Berkeley, CA 94704

November 5th, 2023 at 4:00 PM
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA 94102