Volti is a 20-person professional choir based in San Francisco. The choir was founded by Robert Geary in the fall of 1979 as the San Francisco Chamber Singers and beginning with an all-Bach program. The group quickly moved on to the more contemporary works that have shaped its mission ever since "to encourage, foster and showcase contemporary American music and composers, and to introduce contemporary vocal music from around the world to local audience." When the group turned 25 in 2003-2004, it changed its name to Volti - a reference to the Italian musical instruction "volti subito" meaning "turn quickly."

Volti regularly performs two to three concert series each season in venues throughout the Bay Area. In addition, Volti sponsors the New Music for Treble Voices Festival and a Choral Institute for high school students. In 2009 Volti became the first choir ever to have been awarded the Chorus America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming six times. 2009 also marked the choir's 30th anniversary. Volti has recently released a CD on the innova label: "Turn the Page: New Directions in Americal Choral Music." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/04/PK3R1CLT7P.DTL

Choral Institute

Volti's Choral Institute program brings together high school choir singers from around the Bay Area for weekend-long workshops at the CYO-McGucken Center in Occidental. The high school singers work with Volti singers, Volti conductor Robert Geary, and their own conductors to improve upon their choral technique and to prepare pieces for performance as a massed choir. The Choral Institute is offered twice during the school year; once for mixed choirs in October, and once for treble choirs in January. The mixed choirs continue to work together throughout the year in preparation for a spring performance. In 2009-10, Volti added a resident composer to the Choral Institute program. Morten Lauridsen worked with the students for the weekend intensive, and returned in May 2010 to play the piano accompaniment to his "Nocturnes" song cycle, sung by the massed choir of 120 voices. In fall 2010, http://www.kirkemechem.com/ Kirke Mechem will be the composer in residence for the Choral Institute.

Choral Arts Laboratory

Started in 2003, Volti's Choral Arts Laboratory is a commissioning and residency program aimed at composers under 35. Each year, the composer selected for the program takes part in workshops to develop a piece, then works directly with the Volti singers in rehearsal, hearing how the piece sounds and getting feedback the singers. The composer may then consult with Robert Geary (Volti's artistic director) and Mark Winges (Volti's resident composer) throughout the year as they finish perfecting the piece, which is then premiered at a Volti concert during the regular season.

Past Choral Arts Laboratory composers include:

Peter Knell

Robert Paterson

Robert Paterson (composer)

Robert Paterson is an American composer, percussionist and conductor.-Biography:Paterson studied composition with Christopher Rouse, Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, Warren Benson and David Liptak at the Eastman School of Music, graduating in 1995. At Eastman, he was a double major and studied...

Eric Lindsay

Amy Beth Kirsten

George Lam

Ruby Fulton

Ted Hearne

New Music for Treble Voices Festival

Each spring, Volti sponsors the New Music for Treble Voices festival. Frequent participants include the Peninsula Women's Chorus

Peninsula Women's Chorus

The Peninsula Women's Chorus is an award-winning female choir based at Palo Alto, California.In 1966, after a decade of involvement with local musical ensembles, Marjorie Rawlins of Palo Alto founded the American Association of University Women Midpeninsula Chorus, with 17 members...

 and the Piedmont East Bay Children's Choir. The festival developed out of a sense that the Bay Area was home to many treble choirs who had been acclaimed for their performance of contemporary music.

2003

American Shape-Note Tunes - Arr. Mark Winges (Volti Commission)

American Trio - Kirke Mechem

Kirke Mechem

Kirke Mechem is an American composer. His first opera, Tartuffe, with nearly 400 performances in six countries, has become one of the most popular operas written by an American. He has composed more than 250 works in almost every form. In 2002, ASCAP registered performances of his music in 42...

Shui Diao Ge Tou / Song - Kui Dong

Kui Dong

Kui Dong is a Chinese-American composer, musician, and teacher. She is known for her music which has often incorporated traditional Chinese music into contemporary contexts, and is currently Professor of Music at Dartmouth College - Background in China :Kui Dong claims she was forced into...

Songs for Dancing - Mark Winges (Volti Commission)

Two Yeats Choruses - Alan Fletcher

Alan Fletcher (composer)

Alan Fletcher is President and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival and School and both an accomplished music administrator and respected composer...

 (Volti Commission)

When Summer Shines - Jacob Avshalomov

Jacob Avshalomov

Jacob Avshalomov is a Jewish American composer and conductor.-Early life and education:Jacob Avshalomov was born on March 28, 1919 in Tsingtao, China. His father was Aaron Avshalomov, the Siberian-born composer known for "oriental musical materials cast in western forms and media"; his mother was...

 (Volti Commission)

While I was walking, I heard a sound - Miya Masaoka

Miya Masaoka

Miya Masaoka is an American musician and composer who performs on the 17-string Japanese koto zither, often augmenting it with string preparations and electronic triggers...

2004

Image & Motion: A Choral Symphony - Mark Winges (Volti Commission)

Songs of Love and Loss (revised version) - Paul Chihara

Paul Chihara

Paul Seiko Chihara is an American composer.Chihara was born in Seattle, Washington in 1938. A Japanese American, he spent several years of his childhood with his family in an internment camp in Minidoka, Idaho....

Sonnets of War & Mankind - Stacy Garrop (Volti Commission)

Tautology - Peter Knell (Volti Commission)

2005

Ccollanan María - Gabriela Lena Frank

Gabriela Lena Frank

Gabriela Lena Frank is an American composer of contemporary classical music and pianist.- Biography :...

 (Volti Commission)

The Essence of Gravity - Robert Paterson

Robert Paterson (composer)

Robert Paterson is an American composer, percussionist and conductor.-Biography:Paterson studied composition with Christopher Rouse, Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, Warren Benson and David Liptak at the Eastman School of Music, graduating in 1995. At Eastman, he was a double major and studied...

 (Volti Commission)

No More to Hide - Alan Fletcher

Alan Fletcher (composer)

Alan Fletcher is President and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival and School and both an accomplished music administrator and respected composer...

 (Volti Commission)

Sonnets of Desire, Longing & Whimsey - Stacy Garrop (Volti Commission)

Subandi - Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez

Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez

Carlos Sánchez-Gutiérrez is a Latin-American composer and teacher. He currently resides near Rochester, New York....

 (Volti Commission)

2006

Blessings - Jacob Avshalomov

Jacob Avshalomov

Jacob Avshalomov is a Jewish American composer and conductor.-Early life and education:Jacob Avshalomov was born on March 28, 1919 in Tsingtao, China. His father was Aaron Avshalomov, the Siberian-born composer known for "oriental musical materials cast in western forms and media"; his mother was...

 (Volti Commission)

O the Flesh Is Hot But the Heart Is Cold - Eric Moe (Volti Commission)

Open the Book of What Happened - Mark Winges (Volti Commission)

Sound Explanations - Eric Lindsay (Volti Commission)

2007

A Cricket Needs a Queen - Mark Winges

In the Black - Amy Beth Kirsten (Volti Commission)

Let Evening Come - Howard Hersh

The Locust Tree - Richard Festinger (Volti Commission)

Only one great thing - Cindy Cox

Cindy Cox

Cindy Cox is an American composer and performer, and Professor of Music.She holds a Bachelor of Music in piano performance from Texas Christian University, and her Masters and Doctorate in 1992 from Indiana University in composition, where she studied with Harvey Sollberger, Donald Erb, Eugene...

 (Volti Commission)

Phoenix Songs, Op. 28 - Toon Vandevorst (Volti Commission)

Sonnets of Beauty and Music - Stacy Garrop (Volti Commission)

Two Poems of Delmore Schwartz - Wayne Peterson

Wayne Peterson

Wayne Peterson is a Pulitzer Prize winning composer, as well as a pianist and educator.Peterson earned B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Minnesota...

2008

Dancing in the Wind - Elliott Gyger (Combined Volti & Piedmont Choirs Commission)

Endless - Kurt Rohde (Volti Commission)

Words Become Unlatched - George Lam (Volti Commission)

2009

The Assembling Landscape - Mark Winges (Volti Commission)

The Ballad of James Parry - Ruby Fulton (Volti Commission)

Daglarym / My Mountains - Donald Crockett (Volti Commission)

On the Day the World Ends - Robert Paterson

Robert Paterson (composer)

Robert Paterson is an American composer, percussionist and conductor.-Biography:Paterson studied composition with Christopher Rouse, Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, Warren Benson and David Liptak at the Eastman School of Music, graduating in 1995. At Eastman, he was a double major and studied...

(Volti Commission)

2010

Where Everything is Music - Mark Winges (Volti Commission)

The Poetry of Earth - Joshua Fishbein (Volti Commission)

Zeteo - Jean Ahn (Volti Commission)

Being (Two Poems of Billy Collins) - Yu-Hui Chang (Volti Commission)

Luna, Nova Luna - Mark Winges (Volti Commission)

Paghahandog - Robin Estrada (Volti Commission)

privilege - Ted Hearne (Volti Commission)

External links

• Official Volti website
• San Francisco Classical Voice Volti page