Home for the Holidays | 2016 by VIA MEDIA / BAYSTAGES

DR. TIMOTHY SEELIG, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

DEC. 24, 2016 5PM, 7PM + 9PM

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2355 Market Street San Francisco CA 94114

DR. TIMOTHY SEELIG, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

SEASON 39 PRESENTED BY

“Home for the Holidays” is made possible by the generous support of Mrs. Pansy Chan DECEMBER 24, 2016 • 5 P.M. + 7 P.M. + 9 P.M.

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HAPPY EVERYTHING! Dear friends and family, Happy Chrismukkah! Or is it Merry Chrismukkah? Only a handful of times in the last one hundred years have the first night of Hanukkah and Christmas Eve fallen on the same night, and we are here to experience it together. For the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, this is one our favorite nights of the year – regardless of what holiday we are celebrating – because of you. For twenty-seven years, we have gathered in this place, on this night, to share in the warmth, joy and love of family – both biological and logical. You have probably met friends, old and new, just standing in the festive line up and down Castro Street! As you know, the Chorus made a decision to kick off its 40th season this fall with a tour of six states in the South where our brothers and sisters do not have the support and basic freedoms we enjoy – and sometimes take for granted - here in the Bay Area. We are taking this opportunity to marshal our mosaic of powerful, positive voices to empower our fellow LGBTQ+ Americans, especially the youth. We need your help to make this tour a reality. Watch for updates on the Lavender Pen Tour next October and how you can help. For now, just sit back and allow yourself to be immersed in the beautiful music, and entertained by the antics, too! It is a special night and we are so grateful you are here to share it with us. Thank you for being here,

Dr. Timothy Seelig artistic director

526 Castro Street San Francisco, CA 94114 415.865.3650 415.865.3655 • fax info@sfgmc.org

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Steve Huffines chair

Deborah Boccuzzi vice chair

Sal Baglieri secretary

Skip Schneider treasurer

Glenn DeSandre chorus president

Mike Bernard Steve Burton Eric Chau Peter Drake Dave Earl André Farris Sean Livingston Gregory Marks Paul Saccone John Ybarra

CHORUS LEADERSHIP TEAM

Chris Verdugo executive director

Glenn DeSandre

PS. You think tonight is great? According to Jewish media outlets, “the menorah will be fully lit on Jew Year’s Eve, making 2016 the year of Merry Jew Year’s Eve-ukkah.”

membership president

Kevin Koerner

membership vice president

Michael Tate

performance advisory committee chair

Rylan Carpena Raymond Mark Gonzales Gregory J. Gorman Alejandro Magyaroff Tom Paulino Brian E. Weart 2016.12 • BAYSTAGES.COM

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LEADERSHIP BIOGRAPHIES

image: chris turner

TIM SEELIG is a conductor, singer, teacher and motivational speaker.

DR. TIMOTHY SEELIG artistic director

In addition to artistic director of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, he continues a busy guest-conducting schedule throughout the U.S. and across the globe. He is conductor emeritus of the Turtle Creek Chorale, which he conducted for twenty years, co-founded The Women’s Chorus of Dallas and taught on the faculty at Southern Methodist University for fourteen years. Dr. Seelig holds four degrees, including the doctor of musical arts and the diploma from the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. He has authored seven books and DVDs on choral technique. Recordings have been on the Billboard Top Ten and iTunes Top Ten classical charts. The PBS documentary about the Turtle Creek Chorale received the national Emmy award for best documentary. Dr. Seelig has conducted regularly at Carnegie Hall for the last twenty-five years, as well as at Lincoln Center and the Southbank Centre in London. His groups have commissioned choral works for a variety of amazing organizations including amfAR (The American Foundation for AIDS Research), the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation featuring Dr. Maya Angelou, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital featuring Marlo Thomas. Recent commissions with the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus include Tyler’s Suite for the Tyler Clementi Foundation, I Am Harvey Milk by Andrew Lippa and #twitterlieder. Dr. Seelig’s first career was as a singer. He made his European operatic debut at the Staatsoper in St. Gallen, Switzerland and solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall. He appeared as soloist in world premieres of composers including John Corigliano, Conrad Susa and Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach). Interesting facts include conducting the Longest Choral Concert (Guinness Book of World Records) and carrying the Olympic torch in 1996 as a community hero. He has not run since. He is married to Dan England and is the proud grandfather of the amazing Clara Skye and Eden Mae.

CHRISTOPHER VERDUGO had his first introduction to the gay choral CHRISTOPHER VERDUGO executive director

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movement at the age of eighteen when he joined the Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida. Three years later, he became artistic director of Paragon Productions, choreographing, directing and producing theatrical productions for cruise lines and hotels throughout the world. In 1999, he combined his event production background with his fundraising skills, working with the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, Miami Beach’s Winter Party Music Festival, Communion Foundation and sat on the board of directors of the South Beach Gay Men’s Chorus. Upon moving to Los Angeles in 2003, he was selected as one of two choreographers for the Miss Universe Pageant. Soon after, he left his artistic roots to focus on LGBT and social justice issues working with various LGBT nonprofits including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Equality California, the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD. He also produced Queer Lounge at Sundance. In 2006, he joined the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles as a singer and five years later was named executive director and chief executive officer. Under Verdugo, the Chorus built an international reputation for musical excellence and doubled its operating budget. It experienced massive expansion that included television and film appearances including the Academy Awards, expanded local education programs in Los Angeles high schools, as well as the launched a nationwide tour - It Gets Better - to combat LGBT teen bullying and suicide in rural American towns. He moved to San Francisco in September to assume the role of executive director of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus.

ARTISTIC BIOGRAPHIES CARL PANTLE is a vocal coach, accompanist, and singer who frequently

Francisco, the last seven of which he has been with SFGMC. Originally from a small town in Northern Utah, Lynden attended the University of Northern Colorado where he majored in musical theatre and studied acting, piano and voice. He has worked professionally as an actor, singer, pianist, vocal coach and dog walker. Companies he has worked for include American Conservatory Theater, Bay Area Musicals, Boxcar Theatre and Woodminster Summer Musicals. During his tenure with SFGMC, he has added choral arranger to his resumé, providing several original arrangements, some of which were heard at this year’s quadrennial GALA Festival in Denver. In addition to being the associate accompanist, Lynden has been a featured vocal soloist with the chorus at Davies Symphony Hall, the Castro Theatre and on tour. In 2014 he was the recipient of the Jon Reed Sims Award for Artistic Excellence.

CARL PANTLE

principal accompanist ensemble director, vocal minority

image: devlin shand

LYNDEN BAIR recently celebrated twenty years as a resident of San

image: devlin shand

works with San Francisco Opera, West Bay Opera, Opera San Jose and the Bay Area Summer Opera Theatre Institute. He is also an alumnus of the prestigious Merola Program at the San Francisco Opera Center. Carl studied voice and choral conducting at Brigham Young University and soon after returned to the Bay Area to pursue vocal coaching and accompanying at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Carl has appeared as a vocalist with SFGMC on numerous occasions and appeared at Lincoln Center as accompanist for Dr. Seelig in The Wisdom of Old Turtle in 2011. Carl has collaborated with some of the finest talents Broadway has to offer, including Daniel Reichard, Keala Settle, Julia Murney, Alysha Umphress and Laura Benanti.

GUEST ARTIST LYNDEN BAIR

associate accompanist

image: chip gillespie

Soprano MELODY MOORE has appeared on many of the leading opera stages of the world. She has performed as Susan Rescorla in Heart of a Soldier, Mimì in La bohème, the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro and the title role of Tosca (San Francisco Opera), as Julie in Show Boat, Marta in the American premiere of Weinberg’s The Passenger, the title role in Carmen, Dorabella in Così fan tutte and as Freia in Das Rheingold (Houston Grand Opera), as Mimi and as Marguerite in Faust (English National Opera), as Rita Clayton in the New York premiere of Stephen Schwartz’s Séance on a Wet Afternoon and as Regine St. Laurent in Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna (New York City Opera), as the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro and in productions of Der Zwerg and Der Zerbrochene Krug (Los Angeles Opera) and in the title role of Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas (Washington National Opera). In the 2016-2017 season, Moore returns to the Los Angeles Opera to sing the title role of Tosca as well as to cover Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth. Moore’s last season included her house debut at L’Opéra de Montréal as Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly. At the Washington National Opera, she participated in Artistic Director Francesca Zambello’s highly acclaimed production of the Ring, where she sang Freia and Ortlinde under the baton of Music Director Philippe Auguin. A graduate of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Melody is a former Adler Fellow of San Francisco Opera and a Merola Opera Program participant. Notable conductors with whom she has worked include Kent Nagano, Donald Runnicles, John DeMain, Patrick Summers, Ulf Schirmer and Roy Goodman. Stage directors of productions in which she has participated include John Copley, Ron Daniels, Des McAnuff, Ian Judge, Jonathan Miller, David Pountney and Francesca Zambello.

MELODY MOORE guest artist, soprano

2016.12 • BAYSTAGES.COM

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