San Francisco Girls Chorus Board Dumps Successful Director

Branding the San Francisco Girls Chorus
By Mark MacNamara

 

Last July, after the board of the San Francisco Girls Chorus announced that the contract of the artistic director, Susan McMane, would not be renewed, a great brouhaha arose. Many of the girls wept. Parents threw up their hands. An online petition asking that the board reverse its decision drew 281 signatures. “What are you thinking?” came the cry. “Why would you get rid of the person who has brought us so much success?”

McMane herself was devastated. The decision seemed to come completely out of the blue. She’d had years of glowing performance reports. Indeed, the applause has never stopped for Susan McMane. She felt she was at the very top of her game. At the gala last spring, on the eve of the secret vote that ended her tenure, there’d been no foreshadowing and yet, looking back, perhaps there was the slightest chill in the air…(see link for full story)