San Francisco Girls Chorus Presents World Premiere of Choral Opera "Tomorrow's Memories: A Little Manila Diary" By Matthew Welch
SAN FRANCISCO GIRLS CHORUS PRESENTS WORLD PREMIERE OF CHORAL-OPERA TOMORROW’S MEMORIES: A LITTLE MANILA DIARY BY MATTHEW WELCH
JUNE 16-18
San Francisco, CA – May 17, 2023 – The San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) concludes its season, June 16-18 at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre, with the world premiere of Tomorrow’s Memories: A Little Manila Diary, a new SFGC-commissioned choral-opera from American composer Matthew Welch. The semi-staged work is based on Tomorrow's Memories, A Diary, 1924-1928, the diary writings of Filipina immigrant Angeles Monrayo, and reflects on the importance of the Filipino diaspora’s cultural impact on America particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area. Previously scheduled for its world premiere during the 2021-2022 season but canceled due to COVID, the performances will be led by Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe and feature Filipino guest artists including stage director Sean San José and guitarist Florante Aguilar, with percussionist Haruka Fujii. Four performances of Tomorrow’s Memories will be presented with tickets ranging in price from $20 to $45 and will go on sale Friday, May 19 through magictheatre.org.
Using libretto set to Angeles Monrayo’s personal diary adapted by the composer, Tomorrow’s Memories tells both a Bay Area related Filipino-American coming-of-age story and celebrates the diversity of Filipino music, culture and diaspora. Angeles’s prose, written across four and a half years following emigration from the Philippines to Hawaii, San Francisco and Stockton, explores the joys and trials of being a young immigrant woman, redefining gender-norms, supporting a family as a child, and encounters with racism and sexism.
During the pandemic, SFGC presented excerpts from Tomorrow’s Memories including the June 2020 virtual performance of Scene 1 as part of its Songs from the Archipelago concert and the December 2020 virtual performance of Scene 4 as part of its Island Holiday concert. Most recently, San Francisco performed selections from Tomorrow’s Memories as part of their March 2023 collaboration with Chanticleer. SFGC also launched a Community Book Club that included six monthly events from December 2021 through May 2022 designed to bring awareness, education and conversation about the Angeles Monrayo’s diary writings. Each session explored a different theme from the diary and its relationship with the choral-opera and included numerous appearances by partner organizations, speakers and members of the artistic team.
Speaking about Tomorrow’s Memories, composer Matthew Welch says, “This piece really challenges certain notions as to what “opera” is, in that the chorus is the main feature of the work and has such an extended role far beyond the conventional one of providing commentary and interpretation on the solo roles and parts. It is also only one of a few operas for children that fundamentally shifts the basic building blocks of opera, yet maintains focus on storytelling and drawing inspiration from the original diary by Angeles Monrayo. I am thrilled to compose again for the diverse group of young singers in the San Francisco Girls Chorus. Their sheer virtuosity and hunger for a broader array of musical perspectives astonished me in our first collaboration and I am grateful for the hard-work and exceptional artistry that they have put into bringing this work to life.”
Praised by The New York Times as “exquisitely ethereal” and “border-busting,” Matthew Welch’s innovative opera and genre-resisting music has been performed all over the world and draws on his backgrounds in bagpipes, gamelan, experimental, classical, rock and improvisation. Tomorrow’s Memories continues his research into American-Philippine cultural interchange through his 2017 Fellowship with the Asian Cultural Council and his two-act opera And Here We Are which is based on his family’s memoirs and concentration camp internment in Manila and Baguio from 1902-45. In the spring of 2017, Matthew Welch studied traditional Philippine music for six weeks with indigenous artists in the cities where his family lived, culminating in a sold-out performance of And Here We Are in Brooklyn, May 2018. Tomorrow's Memories is the second collaboration between Matthew Welch and SFGC following the 2016 commission of Salute on the Birth of Rory Mor for chorus and bagpipes.
Stage Director Sean San José says, "Tomorrow’s Memories both explores history and opens up a way of looking at our Filipino lineage and I wanted to work with many mediums to tell the story: visual, music and text. I am excited to stage a story told from a woman’s point of view, and a story that involves women. It will be exciting to see what happens when the story of this pre-teenage girl is told by the voices of 40 energetic young singers. It is a reflection of the world we live in conveyed by young people."
In addition to serving as Artistic Director at Magic Theatre, Sean San José is co-founder of Campo Santo, the award-winning resident theater company of San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts. As Program Director of Theatre for Intersection for the Arts, San José has helped create and curate a new program called the Hybrid Project, formed to bring together artists of all genres, merging differing and emerging styles of performance in order to find a new performance language. He also conceived the theater project Pieces of the Quilt, a collection of short plays confronting the AIDS epidemic. He has also been awarded a Rainin Fellowship in Theatre, San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Commission, two residencies at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from the Wattis Artist Residency, a Bay Area Critics’ Circle Award, the DramaLogue Award, Backstage West, the Cable Car Award, and the Bay Guardian Goldie Artistic Achievement in Theatre Award.
CALENDAR EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE:
San Francisco Girls Chorus Presents
Tomorrow’s Memories: A Little Manila Diary
June 16-18, 2023
Friday, June 16, 7:30 p.m. at Magic Theatre, San Francisco
Saturday, June 17, 3:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at Magic Theatre, San Francisco
Sunday, June 18, 3:00 p.m. at Magic Theatre, San Francisco
San Francisco Girls Chorus
Valérie Sainte-Agathe, Artistic Director & Conductor
Florante Aguilar, guitar and ukulele
Haruka Fujii, percussion
Sean San José, Stage Director
Melvign Badiola, Associate Stage Director
Joan Osato, Video Designer
Cece Carpio, Scenic Designer
GG Torres, Lighting Designer
Patricia Barretto Ong, Movement Designer
Christopher Sauceda, Sound Designer
Zach Miley, Audio Engineer
Matthew Welch: Tomorrow’s Memories: A Little Manila Diary (world premiere SFGC commission)
Tickets range in price from $20 to $45 and will go on sale Friday, May 19 through http://magictheatre.org or by calling the Box Office at (415) 441-8822.