February in France
Fauré: Requiem and Cantique de Jean Racine
Josquin: Mille Regrets - Couperin: Troisième leçon de ténèbres - Le Jeune: Recevey venir du printans
4 sessions: February 6 - 27, 2021
All sessions 11 a.m. Pacific Time
Each session is an 75-minute-long exploration of techniques that will make selected passages from a great choral work beautiful and musical. Although they are not choral rehearsals as such, they will include interludes of singing together through parts and movements of the pieces being studied.
Ragnar's message to singers:
Having been a singer myself, with the fortune of studying with great singer Nicolai Gedda, I have collected many tools from various singers and voice teachers. I look forward to sharing my views on vocal technique in general and choral singing in particular. In these times of lockdown and social distancing it is more vital than ever that we not forget the power of the instrument we all have inside us -- the voice.
- Ragnar Bohlin
About the Event
Date and Time
Four Saturdays, February 6 - 27, 2021 | 11:00 p.m. Pacific Time
All sessions are at 11 am PST, as Ragnar will be joining us from Sweden.
Who is this for?
All singers will benefit from healthy warm ups, and all will learn about the choral masterworks in our sessions. And we always have fun!
How should I prepare?
It's best if you download your music and review the parts.
Is there a cost?
Single tickets are $25, and a series ticket costs $80 for all four sessions.
How do I attend?
Register at Eventbrite using the registration button. Once registered, you’ll receive an email with a link to your personal online access page.
DOWNLOAD YOUR MUSIC
We will be working on phrases and segments from these pages, and occasionally we will sing through a longer stretch.
We will sing segments of all voice parts, focusing on specifics that are general to all parts.
photo by Roy Manzanares
As Chorus Director for the San Francisco Symphony since 2007, Ragnar Bohlin has prepared the SFS Chorus for some of the world’s greatest conductors, including Michael Tilson Thomas, Herbert Blomstedt, Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Alan Gilbert. He has also conducted the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus in such pieces as Orff’s Carmina Burana, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Mass in B Minor, and Poulenc’s Figure Humaine. His outstanding work has been recognized with a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance for Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony.
Bohlin has been invited to appear as guest conductor with orchestras and choirs worldwide. He has made many guest appearances with the Swedish Radio Choir, recording two CDs with them and touring the US to great critical acclaim. He has been guest conductor with Chanticleer, the BBC Singers, Eric Ericson Chamber Choir, Royal Philharmonic Choir, Opera Chorus of Stockholm and Formosa Singers of Taiwan, among many others. Orchestral conducting appearances have been with symphonies in São Paulo, Edmonton, Helsingborg, Stavanger Madrid, Shanghai and Malmö.
In 2014 he founded the San Francisco-based 24-voice professional chamber choir Cappella SF, with whom he has made four professional recordings and premiered over ten new choral works.
Bohlin teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, has taught at the Royal Academy in Stockholm, and was a 2008 visiting professor at Indiana University. He has been awarded the prestigious Johannes Norrby Award for expanding the frontiers of Swedish choral music-making and Chorus America’s Michael Korn Award for the Development of the Professional Choral Art. Conducting studies were with the renowned choir director Eric Ericson, piano with Peter Feuchtwanger in London and voice with the great Swedish tenor Nicolai Gedda. He has also appeared as an oratorio tenor.
