Volti

Volti, one of the leading professional vocal ensembles in the
United States, has a primary purpose of performing contemporary
American music. Having commissioned more than
120 new works by a diverse group of emerging and
established composers, Volti is the only seven-time winner of the
Chorus America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming of
Contemporary Music, and the 2023 winner of Chorus America’s
prestigious Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence. Volti has
been guided since 1979 by founding Artistic Director Robert Geary.

*Programming and artists subject to change, please refer to the participating organization’s calendar listing for the most up-to-date program.

Performance Times

Friday November 3rd, 8:00PM

Saturday November 4th, 7:30PM

Sunday November 5th, 4:00PM

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Events

California Festival

Volti presents a program of groundbreaking new works for unaccompanied voices: Brazilian composer Marcos Balter’s spectacular setting of color-themed poems by 20th-Century literary giant Fernando Pessoa; San Francisco composer Mark Winges sets three poems by California poet Jane Hirshfield; Yu-Hui Chang, a native of Taiwan, sets two poems by Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the US; Singaporean composer Emily Koh, sets a patchwork of Teochew (a Chinese dialect) phrases from childhood; British-American composer Freya Waley-Cohen sets texts from Milton and Pushkin; and LJ White, a graduate of Volti’s young-composer residency program, explores concepts of love.

Piece(s)/Composer(s)

THE BOOK OF COLORS, 2022 (CO-COMISSIONED BY THE CROSSING AND SAN DIEGO MASTER CHORALE)
Marcos BALTER

WORDS CAST SHADOWS, 2023 (VOLTI COMMISSION)
Mark WINGES

NANUNIKU
Emily KOH

BEING - TWO COLLINS SONGS (VOLTI COMMISSION)
Yu-Hui CHANG

ATTIRED WITH STARS
Freya WALEY-COHEN

A CAROL CALLED LOVE
LJ WHITE

Program Notes

In addition to presenting concerts and creating recordings of leading-edge unaccompanied music for vocal ensemble, Volti enjoys frequent collaborations. Last fall Volti participated in a nationwide consortium of vocal ensembles in a commission from Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw titled "Ochre". Earlier this year they revived their collaboration with ODC/Dance, performing KT Nelson’s inspired staging of Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco for the third time, to sold-out houses. Other recent and upcoming collaborators include the Del Sol Quartet, Kronos Quartet, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Volti has also provided the chorus for visiting orchestras presented by Cal Performances, and has performed several times at Festival Napa Valley.

Listening to Volti is like visiting a contemporary art gallery, stimulating the mind, the imagination, and the heart.

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