Who’s afraid of a choir master?

SF Gay Men’s Chorus conductor Kathleen McGuire moves on

by Philip Gambone

When Kathleen McGuire conducts the last of a trio of Christmas
Eve concerts at the Castro Theatre this month, she will put the
finishing flourish on a decade-long tenure as the first female
conductor of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. She’s going out
with a bang. McGuire promises that the program, A Soulful
Celebration, will rock.

“Lots of gospel-style music,” she said one recent afternoon as
she hurried to get ready for a rehearsal. “My first major
appearance with SFGMC was the holiday concert in 2000, so these
concerts are a fitting way to end. It will be very uplifting. The
chorus will totally lift the roof!”

McGuire is stepping down in order to “take a leap of faith to
follow my heart.” In September, she became the director of Singers
of the Street (S.O.S.), a community choir for people living on the
margins of society, especially the homeless.

“S.O.S. is something I’ve been thinking about for a couple of
years,” McGuire says. She credits a visit to the Choir of Hope and
Inspiration, an Australian community chorus for the homeless and
disadvantaged, with giving her the idea to mount a similar project
in this country. “I am passionate about trying to help those who
are marginalized in our society.”

For the next few weeks, however, McGuire will concentrate her
energies on preparing her swansong with SFGMC. Asked what her
legacy will be, McGuire is quick to note that she was instrumental
in “bringing SFGMS back into the community.” She points to the
outreach program she launched in 2001, which took the chorus into
venues where it had not previously appeared, including schools,
women’s organizations, churches, the Special Olympics, the Gospel
Academy Awards Ceremony and the California Freedom Tour. Under her
leadership, the chorus has raised almost $500,000 for charities.
“It has become the most important thing that SFGMC does,” she
declares.