Holiday Gaiety

Edwin Outwater regularly works with the world’s top orchestras, institutions, and artists to reinvent the concert experience. His ability to cross genres has led to collaborations with Metallica, Wynton Marsalis, Renée Fleming, and Yo-Yo Ma. He is music director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and music director laureate of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.

Recent appearances include performances with New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Seattle Symphony, and the New World Symphony, as well as the Royal Philharmonic in a multi-concert series opening the Steinmetz Hall in Florida. He also served as a producer and musical advisor for the National Symphony Orchestra’s 50th Anniversary Concert at the Kennedy Center. In December 2022, he premiered A Christmas Gaiety at the Royal Albert Hall with Peaches Christ and BBC Concert Orchestra, and returned in 2023. 

Outwater holds a long association with San Francisco Symphony since making his debut in November 2001. In the 2022–23 season, he led the first Symphony performances of Gabriel Kahane’s emergency shelter intake form in collaboration with the composer and a program with Seth MacFarlane, and in 2024 led the Symphony in a collaboration with Sting. He was formerly San Francisco Symphony Resident Conductor, Director of Summer Concerts, and Music Director of San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Peaches Christ is a filmmaker and cult leader living in San Francisco. Her infamous movie events are self-produced at the Castro Theatre and regularly draw more than 1,000 attendees to each new production before they tour. Events have featured special guest stars John Waters, Cloris Leachman, and Pam Grier, among others. 

Peaches is the alter-ego of Joshua Grannell, the writer and director of the feature film All About Evil. The award-winning dark comedy gore film stars Natasha Lyonne, Thomas Dekker, Cassandra Peterson, Mink Stole, and Peaches Christ herself. Joshua is also co-owner and creator of Into the Dark Productions, which produces immersive theatre events at the Old San Francisco Mint building, including Terror Vault. Peaches Christ has been featured in the films Milk, I Am Divine, Diary Of A Teenage Girl, Mansfield 66/67, Tura!, Scream Queen: My Nightmare On Elm Street, You Don’t Nomi, and more. She created the San Francisco Symphony’s Holiday Gaiety show with Edwin Outwater in 2017.

Alex Newell recently made history with their Tony Award win for the hit musical Shucked, which has received glowing reviews and praise with Newell’s performance of the song “Independently Owned” being called a showstopper. Their performances have also granted them the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Performer in a Broadway Musical. Prior to this, Newell starred as the God Asaka in the Broadway revival of Once on This Island. This show granted them a Grammy nomination for Best Musical Theater Album, and the show was nominated for nine Tony Awards in 2018, won Best Revival, and led to Newell performing live at the Tonys.

Newell was named in this year’s Variety New Power of New York list, and they were also featured in the 2023 Time 100 Next list. They were additionally named the 2023 Breakthrough of the Year by Time, part of the annual Person of the Year issue. In 2025, Newell will appear in the Amazon film A Simple Favor 2. They made their San Francisco Symphony debut in December 2021.

Currently appearing in her third Las Vegas residency as part of RuPaul’s Drag Race LIVE!, Latrice Royale has captured the hearts of the world and earned the title of Miss Congeniality on Season 4 of RuPaul’s Drag Race. She went on to appear in other incarnations of the franchise, including multiple guest appearances on RuPaul’s Drag U and Drag Race All Stars. Recently she co-hosted HBO’s Emmy-winning series We’re Here. She has also been seen on London’s West End in Death Drop and guest starred in Netflix series AJ and the Queen.

The Large and in Charge, Chunky Yet Funky, Bold and Beautiful Queen has toured the world with her autobiographical one-queen show Here’s to Life, and released an album of the same name. She was proud to be a keynote speaker on the steps of the Florida State Capitol as part of the 2023 Drag Queen March, speaking out against anti-drag legislation. She made her San Francisco Symphony debut in October 2015.

After a rollercoaster journey of self-discovery while creating iconic TV moments, Lady Camden became one of the true breakout stars of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 14. Actor, dancer, choreographer. . . this gal is one busy lady! While she spends most of the year traveling the world kicking, pirouetting, and pas-de-bourrée-ing, she proudly calls the gayest city in America home—San Francisco. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with this performance.

Before stepping into the Werkroom, Lady Camden began her career as a professional ballet dancer at Sacramento Ballet and Smuin Ballet before becoming a freelance choreographer and acting teacher. Since finishing as the runner-up of season 14, Lady Camden has gone on to tour with Werq the World, produced music, and continued her choreographic work in the ballet world.

Kylie Minono is a dedicated community organizer, both in and out of drag. As former Grand Duchess of the Grand Ducal Council of San Francisco, she has helped raise significant contributions to local charities. She is a sought-after performer throughout California and was crowned Miss Star Search in 2015. She first appeared with the San Francisco Symphony in the 2019 Holiday Gaiety show.

Artistically fluid performer Nikola Printz is a second-year Adler Fellow with San Francisco Opera, where their assignments this season include New Ofglen in The Handmaid’s Tale, Mercédès in Carmen, and Carmen in Carmen Encounter. Prinz participated in the Merola Opera Program in 2021 and 2022, made their mainstage debut in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, and also performed as Musetta in the company’s production of Bohème Out of the Box.

This past season, they returned to Opera San José for Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Festival Opera for their acclaimed portrayal of Carmen, and sang the role of Billie Jean King in Opera Parallèle’s production of Birds and Balls. Recent career highlights include the title roles of Carmen and Dido and Aeneas with Opera San José, L’Italiana in Algeri with Opera Memphis, The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein with Pocket Opera, Freschi’s Ermelinda with Ars Minerva, Orfeo ed Eurydice with West Edge Opera, and The Rape of Lucretia with Green Mountain Opera Festival. They made their San Francisco Symphony debut in December 2022, and last July stepped in on short notice to sing Manuel de Falla’s The Three-Cornered Hat with the Orchestra.

Printz first established themself onstage in jazz and cabaret venues and is well-versed in genre bending crossover styles, creating the role of Velma Louise Cole in Boxcar Theater’s immersive Speakeasy SF. An accomplished aerialist, Printz has also developed and performed on spinning trapezes in both grand concert halls and smoky cabaret clubs. 

For more than three decades, Sister Roma has been one of the most outspoken and highly visible members of San Francisco’s Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. From fighting on the front lines in the war against HIV/AIDS to taking on social media giant Facebook as the creator of the #MyNameIs movement, Roma has dedicated more than half her life to community service, activism, and fundraising. She is a proud accomplice to the trans and QBIPOC communities and an advocate for LGBTQ refuge and asylum. Rising to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Roma partnered with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, and the mayor’s COVID response team to create the Sisters’ #PracticeSafeSix mask campaign to raise awareness and promote health and wellness citywide.

But don’t get it twisted, this Sister is no Saint! Her colorful wit and sharp tongue have made Roma one of San Francisco’s favorite entertainers and emcees, landing her front and center on the main stages of SF Pride, Folsom Street Fair, and Easter in the Park, where she emcees the infamous Hunky Jesus Contest. A frequent guest on television and radio, Roma is blessed to travel the globe as an LGBTQ ambassador and event host, striving to uphold her Sisterly vows to expiate stigmatic guilt and promulgate universal joy.

Jacob Stensberg is conductor and artistic director of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and the Chan National Queer Arts Center. Prior to his appointment with SFGMC, he was the assistant director for Purdue Musical Organizations at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. In addition to his work at Purdue, Stensberg enjoyed working with Butler University choirs and orchestras, the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, the Circle City Chamber Choir, the Booth Tarkington Civic Theater, Zach&Zack Productions, BOBDIREX, the Eclectic Pond Theatre Company, and the Civic Theater of Lafayette.

Stensberg’s inaugural season with the SFGMC included a record-setting Holiday Spectacular, two record-setting spring performances of Disney PRIDE in Concert, and his debut conducting the San Francisco Symphony in partnership with SFGMC in July 2023 on Hello Yellow Brick Road. He received his formal and formative training from Dr. Kristina Boerger at Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where he earned a bachelor of music education. He earned his master of music in conducting from Butler University, where he studied with Eric Stark.