What Is the Sacramento Choral Calendar?
First, an introduction. My name is Dick Frantzreb, and I am the past president of the Sierra Community Chorus (now the Placer Pops Chorale) and a lifelong singer in choruses. I am also a co-founder and past president of the Sacramento Valley Choral Coalition. In September of 2009, I initiated a website called The Placer Performance Calendar to cover all the performing arts events in South Placer County and Folsom. I was concerned that quality performances of all kinds were under-patronized, and I wanted to do something about it.
As a lover of choral music, I had become increasingly aware in the summer of 2011 of the abundance and diversity of choral organizations in the greater Sacramento area. Often I learned of an interesting concert only after it had been given. The sad fact is that most choral concerts are severely under-publicized. That's no surprise: paid advertising is beyond the means of most groups, and coverage in local media is spotty. Many groups have simply given up on publicity and only announce concerts to their list of past patrons. In September 2011, I saw this as a problem for which I could provide a solution.
Considering my experience with the Placer Performance Calendar, I felt I could provide a useful service both to those, like myself, who love choral music and to the many singers who have to perform to half-filled houses. The answer was the Sacramento Choral Calendar. It organizes information from independent and college-affiliated choruses, plus many other organizations that sponsor choral events. Most of the Calendar's information I collect from systematic monitoring of these organizations' websites (instead of relying on them to volunteer information). This information is updated at least weekly, and you can to search the Calendar by date and by city (using the code structure).
The Calendar gives just the basic information for choral concerts: city, date/time, title and location. Clicking on the title of the event sends you to the chorus's website for more information. But what about schools and churches? After all, nearly every high school has a choir, as do many churches. I won't (can't) cover these organizations as systematically as the independent choruses, but if you want listed a public performance of your high school choir or church choir, you may send the information to info@sacchoralcalendar.com, and I'll add it to the Calendar.
After the Sacramento Choral Calendar was launched in September of 2011, I added extensive information about auditions and reviews of selected performances. The Audition page was last updated in the summer of 2019, and it may be updated in the summer of 2022. I wrote and published reviews of concerts from 2012 to 2018, and all the reviews are still accessible in this site. Starting in 2018, I have published reviews of selected choral concerts, as well as the events or many other performing arts organizations in the Capital Region Performance Gallery.
All my projects are conceived as a community service, so if you have suggestions for how to make them better, know that your suggestions are welcome and can be sent to the e-mail address above.