Biography

The Young Women’s Chorus of San Francisco is the premier performing ensemble of Young Women’s Choral Projects of San Francisco (YWCP). Founded in 2012 and led by Artistic and Executive Director Susan McMane, YWCP includes four levels of choral experience for young women ages five to eighteen from across the San Francisco Bay Area. The mission of YWCP is to transform the lives of young women through exceptional artistry in choral performance and to bring the expressive power of their music to the community, the nation, and the world. Through YWCP, participants of richly diverse socio-ethnic backgrounds find their voices as singers, artists, and women in a nurturing environment that empowers them to artistic and personal excellence. YWCP highlights include performing on the San Francisco Opera stage with Jake Heggie and Frederica von Stade and at Cal Performances with the Kronos Quartet and the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, respectively. In 2014, the chorus won the American Prize in Choral Performance and the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award from Chorus America and American Composers Forum, and in 2017 won ASCAP’s Adventurous Programming Award. This season’s concerts feature Arvo Pärt’s Te Deum with the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus under the direction of Ragnar Bohlin, two holiday concerts including a commission by David Conte, the premiere of Aleksandra Vrebalov’s opera Abraham in Flames, and a concert tour to South Africa.

Dr. Susan McMane is the founding Artistic and Executive Director of the Young Women’s Choral Projects of San Francisco, where she conducts the premier chorus of young women in grades seven through twelve and oversees the YWCP training program for younger girls. Her choruses have won the ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, performed on the steps of the Capitol in Washington DC for the first inauguration ceremony of President Barack Obama in 2009 and in Cuba on a cultural exchange mission, and appeared on Grammy-winning recordings with the San Francisco Symphony. In 2017 she was awarded the CEDAW Women’s Human Rights Award for Girls Empowerment and Education. 

(June 2019)