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Sacramento Choral Society & Orchestra

The Sacramento Choral Society & Orchestra (SCSO) is an auditioned, volunteer chorus of 150-180 voices committed to the performance, education, and appreciation of a wide range of choral orchestral music for the Greater Sacramento, California Region. Their mission is to provide large-scale choral works at attractive family prices. The SCSO, previously the Sacramento Symphony Chorus, was formed as a nonprofit organization in 1996 when the Sacramento Symphony disbanded. The group is known as the Sacramento Choral Society (SCS) when not performing with orchestra.

The SCSO previously performed at the Sacramento Community Center Theater. Starting in 2008, its large scale performances have been held at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at the University of California at Davis. In 2009 the SCS will initiate a Sacramento Stained Glass Series at Sacramento’s landmark Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, a venue which allows performance of glorious smaller-scale repertoire in the more intimate acoustics of a church.

The SCSO’s repertoire embraces the great choral works from the Renaissance to contemporary composers. An annual Home for the Holidays concert series is a highly anticipated kick-off to the Christmas season. The SCSO has performed a number of pops programs including music of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe, and Cole Porter. The SCSO’s programs are eclectic, global, and thrilling and each performance is world class.

The SCSO was founded by its artistic director Dr. Donald Kendrick, a brilliant conductor and teacher whose passion for music and understanding of its power truly inspires both performers and concert attendees alike. In addition to conducting the SCSO, he oversees several choruses at California State University Sacramento, as well as church groups, Schola Cantorum and Vox Nova. The SCSO also serves as cultural ambassadors by regularly engaging in self-funded national and international tours. In 2003 Dr. Kendrick and the SCS performed Orff’s Carmina Burana with the New England Symphonic Ensemble in New York’s Carnegie Hall. The SCS toured Europe in 2004, performing with local orchestras in Munich, Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. The SCS toured China in 2006, performing a mostly a capella program in Bejing, Tianjin, Xian, Jinan, and on the Great Wall. In June 2008 the SCSO was proud to perform, with its own orchestra, the Mozart Requiem and the Lauridsen Lux Aeterna in Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. In June 2009 the SCO performed a program of Handel, Corigliano, Beethoven, and Rutter with organ in churches in Vancouver and Victoria, Canada.

The SCSO has recorded two CDs. European Horizons was recorded in Budapest in 2004, and Eternal Light was recorded in Los Angeles in 2008.

The driving force behind the SCSO’s success is found in its membership. The dedicated professional-caliber chorus members come from six different counties and donate more than 32,000 hours annually to make these large performances possible.

According to Chorus America in Washington, DC, the SCSO is the only community chorus among 12,000 community choruses in the U.S. to have a collective bargaining agreement with its own 55-member professional symphony orchestra. The orchestra adds rich beauty, talent and power to the experience that moves and inspires. The SCSO thus provides regular employment for local musicians. Since 1996 the SCSO has remunerated $1.6 million to members of the American Federation of Musicians, Local 12.

But all of this artistry needs support behind the scenes. A 13-member Governing Board oversees the long-range planning and management of the corporation. A 50-member Chorus Operations Team helps the SCSO in the weekly management of music distribution, rehearsal schedules and attendance, ticket sales, parking, membership dues and many other tasks. This amazing team is one of the secrets of the SCSO’s success. Five part-time professional volunteer office staff work closely with SCSO Board President James McCormick to take care of the important day-to-day operations for the organization.

Together, this large musical team creates five to seven large performances each year and regularly engages in many effective community outreach programs.

So what are the keys to the amazing success of this award-winning arts organization?

Certainly, they include hard work, talent, high expectations, dedication, and true professionalism.

Yet in the eyes of its members and its leaders, the most important element is passion: the love of the art they create, their priceless gift to grateful audiences around the world, and especially, in Sacramento.

Biography of Dr. Donald Kendrick

Dr. Donald Kendrick is the founding Conductor of the 180-voice Sacramento Choral Society and Orchestra that presents several concerts each season in the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts in Davis, California. He is also Director of Choral Activities at California State University, Sacramento, where he conducts the Concert Choir, Chamber Choir and the University Chorus. At CSUS he also directs the Graduate Degree Program in Choral Conducting that he initiated in 1986. His CSUS Choirs have performed in Europe, the United States and Canada, where they appeared on an international telecast at the invitation of the Prime Minister of Canada.

Dr. Kendrick is also Organist and Director of Music at Sacramento's Sacred Heart Church where he conducts Vox Nova (Sunday 9:30 a.m. Men's Chorus) and Schola Cantorum, an ensemble that has recorded and toured throughout North America, Spain, England, Italy, and Austria. In addition, he is co-founder and former artistic director of the Sacramento Children’s Chorus. Dr. Kendrick has prepared choruses for such leading orchestras as the Boston Symphony, the Boston Pops, the Toronto Symphony, the San Jose Symphony, the Chautauqua Symphony, the Baton Rouge Symphony, the Sacramento Symphony, and other orchestras in Canada.

He has studied at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Boston's New England Conservatory of Music, Stanford University, and he holds a doctoral degree from the Eastman School of Music where he also served on the faculty. He earned the CHM (Choirmaster) Certificate from the American Guild of Organists, and was the first recipient of the Louise Rogers Goucher Memorial Scholarship given by the American Choral Federation in New York.

Dr. Kendrick has taught at Louisiana State University, the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music, and at universities in Canada where his choirs won national competitions for their excellence. In 1989, he accepted an invitation from Boston's celebrated Chorus Pro Musica, to serve as its third conductor in 41 years.

He has appeared on the CBC as a recitalist and conductor, and his choirs have been broadcast locally on KXPR-FM and KVIE Television. He is active as a guest conductor, an adjudicator for choral festivals throughout the country. In May 1995, he made his Carnegie Hall conducting debut in a performance of Verdi's Requiem. In May 2003, Dr. Kendrick once again returned to Carnegie Hall with the SCSO to conduct a triumphant performance of Orff's Carmina Burana.

In July 2004, Conductor Kendrick led SCSO members and guests of the CSUS Choral Program on their first international European tour to Munich, Prague, Vienna and Budapest. In February 2005, Schola Cantorum was selected to perform at the National Convention of the American Choral Directors' Association in Los Angeles at the new Cathedral Our Lady of the Angels. In July 2006, Dr. Kendrick led the Sacramento Choral Society and guests from the CSUS Choral Music Program on a performance tour of China, with concerts in Beijing, Tianjin, Xian, Jinan (Sacramento's Sister City) and a special performance on the Great Wall. In June 2007 Dr. Kendrick toured Italy with Schola Cantorum where they performed at a Papal Audience for Pope Benedict XVI and at St. Peter's (The Vatican) on the Great Altar. In July 2009 Schola Cantorum toured Austria, singing in cathedrals in Salzburg, Vienna, and Graz.

In 1992 Dr. Kendrick was awarded a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Assembly for his work in promoting choral music for youth in the greater Sacramento area. In May 2004, he received the CSUS School of the Arts Outstanding Community Service Award for his work in linking the community to the University. He is also the "Repertoire and Standards" representative for Community Choruses for the State of California for the American Choral Directors Association. He currently serves on the statewide board of the California American Choral Directors Association where he is the representative for Community Choruses in California.

In May 2007 Dr. Kendrick was named Outstanding Teacher of the Year by the Capitol Section of the California Music Educators Association.

Mission

The SCSO is an auditioned, volunteer chorus with a professional orchestra committed to the performance, education, and appreciation of a wide range of choral orchestral music for the Greater Sacramento Region.

Slogan

In Concert with the Community

Vision Statement

Prominence & Permanence: Prominence through continued artistic product. Permanence through financial stability.

Tours

2003 – Carnegie Hall, New York. Carmina Burana was performed to rousing standing ovations. Group of 150 singers + 100 guests

2004 – European Tour of Munich, Prague, Vienna, Budapest. Performed with 4 outstanding orchestras. Group of 125 Singers (with some CSUS students) and 75 Guests

2006 – China – Group of 120 Singers & 100 Guests with performances in: Beijing in the prestigious Forbidden City Concert Hall Xian, the Ancient Capital of China Jinan – Sacramento’s Sister City The Great Wall of China

2008 – Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. 137 singers, 40 orchestra members, 50 guests

2009 – Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia. 80 Singers, 50 Guests

Awards

Best in Show 2000: Classical Music: Choral - Sacramento Bee, January 2001

Arts Excellence Award - Arts and Business Council of Sacramento - October 2001

Best of the Best Outstanding Nonprofit of the Year - Nonprofit Resource Center, March 2002

Arts Executive of the Year Award - Arts and Business Council of Sacramento - October 2003, James McCormick, SCSO Board President

Best Example of Talent and Efficiency - Sacramento Magazine, Best of Sacramento, November 2003

Sacramento City Council Resolution – Honoring the SCSO’s arts leadership – February 2005

Sacramento County Board of Supervisors – Honoring the SCSO’s Civic Engagement in the Arts – April 2005

Senator Barbara Boxer Certificate of Appreciation for Civic Engagement in the Arts – November 2006

Best in Classical Music 2007 - Verdi Requiem, March 2007 – Sacramento Bee

Recordings

European Horizons Live recording on July 12, 2004 at Liszt Academy, Budapest, with the Budapest Concert Orchestra

Eternal Light Live recording on June 27, 2008 at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles

Major Repertoire

Bach – Christ lag in Todesbanden, The Magnificat

Beethoven – Ninth Symphony

Berlioz – Requiem

Brahms – Ein Deutsches Requiem

Corigliano – Fern Hill

Duruflé – Requiem

Dvorak – Requiem, Stabat Mater, Te Deum

Elgar – The Dream of Gerontius, The Music Makers

Haydn – The Creation, Harmoniemesse, Lord Nelson Mass

Holst – The Hymn of Jesus

Lauridsen – Lux Aeterna

Mendelssohn – Elijah

Monteverdi – Laetatus Sum

Mozart – Great Mass in C Minor, Coronation Mass, Requiem

Orff – Carmina Burana

Rossini – Stabat Mater

Vaughan Williams – Dona Nobis Pacem, A Sea Symphony, Serenade to Music

Verdi – Requiem

Willcocks – A Great and Glorious Victory