STAFF
Robert Geary
Founding Artistic Director
Robert Geary, founding Artistic Director of Volti, the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, and the Golden Gate International Choral Festival, also serves as Artistic Director of the San Francisco Choral Society. His multi-dimensional commitment to the choral arts over more than forty years has led him and his choirs to national and international prominence. Under his direction since its founding in 1979, Volti has become recognized as one of the most important and accomplished new music ensembles in the USA.
For 37 years, until stepping down as Artistic Director in 2019, Geary oversaw the development of the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, an innovative education and performance program whose record of success in competition is at the highest international standard. With his guiding vision, the Golden Gate International Children’s and Youth Choral Festival has become part of the international choral environment, bringing thousands of young singers from dozens of countries to California for a thrilling series of performances and competitions. For 28 years he has led the San Francisco Choral Society to a robust position as a keeper of the traditional repertoire and an innovative force in the commissioning and performance of new works for chorus and orchestra.
Recipient of awards for conducting in Germany and Poland, Geary has also received the KDFC Music Educator of the Year Award and the Lois Blair Rawlings Educational Inspiration Award. Most recently (2023) he received Chorus America’s Michael Korn Founders Award for a lifetime of significant contributions to the professional choral art.
Geary’s dedication to today’s choral music has encouraged the careers of several leading composers and has led to more than 200 new works. He has served as a clinician internationally and he has conducted in dozens of countries. His choirs have performed with symphony orchestras and opera companies and for many musical conferences and festivals, both internationally and here in the United States, and can be heard on recordings with many labels. Geary has prepared choirs for leading conductors including JoAnn Falletta, Helmuth Rilling, Robert Shaw, Kurt Herbert Adler, Edo de Waart, Krzysztof Penderecki, Herbert Blomstedt, Dale Warland, Kent Nagano, Michael Morgan, Michael Tilson Thomas, Ludovic Morlot, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Giacomo DiGrigoli
Executive Director
Giacomo DiGrigoli is the Executive Director of Volti, the International Orange Chorale of San Francisco, and a 20 year member of the San Francisco choral and tech scenes. He sings with the Golden Gate Men's Chorus, Counterpoint, NovAntiqua the International Orange Chorale, and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. He has also served on the boards of GGMC, IOCSF, and New York-based Choral Chameleon. He's also a product person at heart, spending the last 20 years in product management leadership roles at PayPal, eBay, Slack, Airbnb, Yammer, and vintage marketplace Chairish.
Giacomo earned his BA in Psychology from Yale University, where he sang with the Whiffenpoofs, the Duke's Men of Yale (now the Doox of Yale), and the Bach Choir.
Contact Giacomo: giacomo@voltisf.org
Mark Winges
Resident Composer
Mark Winges was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and currently resides in San Francisco, where he has been resident composer / advisor for Volti since 1990. He was also composer-in-residence for the San Francisco Choral Artists in the 2012-13 season. He is a graduate of the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, SF State University, and has studied at the Musikhögskolan in Stockholm, Sweden with composer Arne Mellnäs.
Gramophone magazine has characterized his music as “stylistically adventurous in setting, but strongly beholden to conventional means.” SF Classical Voice describes him as “a composer with the skill and self-confidence to write music that is clear, direct, and at times even simple, but not at all simple-minded.” He has had residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Fundación Valparaiso (Mojácar, Spain), Ragdale Foundation and the Visby International Centre for Composers (Visby, Sweden).
Recent pieces include Spun Light, a “distanced” concerto written for Icelandic violinist Hrabba Atladottir and the Left Coast Ensemble, and Solstice Dreams, a work for large chamber ensemble premiered by Ensemble Ibis at the University of Miami. Upcoming is Adventure in the Air, a concerto for soprano saxophone and wind orchestra commissioned by a consortium of bands. The first performance took place in the fall of 2023 at Cornell University, with subsequent performances by other consortium members throughout 2024. markwinges.com
Sidney Chen
Artistic Advisor
Sidney Chen is a multi-faceted performing artist and a vital force in contemporary music, dedicated to dissolving boundaries. An “expressive and richly mellifluous” bass-baritone (SF Chronicle), Chen is recognized for his commanding presence and adventurous collaborations with artists across disciplines, including with Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble and ODC/Dance. His performances span renowned festivals and venues such as the Edinburgh International Festival, BAM Next Wave Festival, SF Symphony’s American Mavericks Festival, and Carnegie Hall.
Chen’s passion for small-ensemble music has led to a 25-year association with Volti, co-founding The M6 sextet, and working with the vocal ensemble Clerestory. His inventive artistry extends to his use of DIY hand-crank music boxes as performance instruments, creating mesmerizing sonic landscapes that captivate audiences with their blend of nostalgia and experimentation, described as “player piano music for a doll’s house” (SF Chronicle).
Beyond the stage, Chen is a respected arts leader with a deep commitment to advancing new music, working with forward-looking organizations like the Kronos Quartet, Nonesuch Records, NewMusicBox, and EIGHT/MOVES. In 2024, he was the guest curator for SF Music Day, a festival at the SF War Memorial & Performing Arts Center. He serves on the Board of Trustees for the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum Foundation. sidneychenarts.com
Paul G. McGurdy
Rehearsal pianist
Paul G. McCurdy, rehearsal pianist, is a teacher, coach, and pianist for Chabot College, Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory, the Hamlin School, and A.C.T., as well as a frequent collaborator with Lamplighters Musical Theatre, the Oakland Gay Men’s Chorus, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He studied music at the University of Georgia and holds degrees in anthropology and German. In 2014 he recorded Mozart KLAR, an album of Mozart piano sonatas.
Sue Bohlin
Rehearsal pianist
Sue Bohlin, rehearsal pianist, enjoys a career as accompanist, freelance pianist, composer, vocal coach, and conductor. A music performance graduate of the Conservatory at University of the Pacific, she taught oboe at the National Conservatory in Mexico City and played with several orchestras. She was Music Director with George Coates Performance Works Theater for a decade, and she has toured and worked with Robert Geary’s choirs extensively since 1984. She founded and conducts the Anchor Bay Children’s Choir, and has written several pieces that have been published by Alliance Music and Santa Barbara Music.