The Bay and Beyond
Bay Choral Guild has new name, global viewpoint
by Rebecca Wallace, Palo Alto Weekly
Sanford Dole, artistic director of the Bay Choral Guild, often describes himself and his singers as "educators."
In designing a concert season, he looks for a range of music that audiences may never have heard. While this season includes the popular Maurice Durufle requiem and other French choral works, it also crisscrosses the globe, encompassing "Camptown Races," Mongolian folk music and Christmas carols from Eastern Europe.
This means the singers of the Bay Choral Guild (formerly Cantabile Chorale) also have to be industrious students.
The chorus was founded in 1979 as the Baroque Choral Guild, but in 2008 changed its name to Bay Chorale Guild as "Baroque" was proving too limited a term for the repertoire.
This 30th-anniversary season continues a time of "retrenching" for BCG, Dole said. It's a different world than when he joined the group as music director in 2000. Like so many arts organizations, the chorus has suffered a loss of funding since the dot-com bust and the Sept. 11 attacks. There are also fewer singers in the group than Dole would like: about 40, when he'd prefer 50 to give the sound "more solidity and oomph."
Still, there's a silver lining. Without so many deep-pocketed supporters with an interest in the chorus' direction, the group is freer to go its own artistic way, Dole said. The concerts planned for next June, for instance, will feature a program of folk songs and other "indigenous works," a new direction for the group.
The chorus' seasoned singers -- this is not a group for beginners -- are used to singing classic requiems and masses, and that won't end, Dole said. "That's the bulk of the choral repertoire, but there's other great world music out there."
Last year, the group delved into pop music for the first time, including a Beatles song. It has also benefited from Dole's skill as a composer; he has written a few pieces for BCG and is planning a half-hour-long piece with piano for the 2009-2010 season.
Dole, a longtime conductor, composer and singer, has deep Bay Area roots; he grew up in Berkeley and was a founding member of the acclaimed men's vocal ensemble Chanticleer. His current responsibilities also include being music director of St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco.
The Bay Choral Guild has toured locally and overseas, including singing at St. Mark's Basilica in Venice in 2003. Its first professional recording, "The Seasons of Christmas," was released in 2005. read more