In This Program
The Concert
Friday, April 4, 2025, at 7:30pm
Saturday, April 5, 2025, at 2:00pm
Sarah Hicks conducting
Alice Zawadzki vocalist
Eric Rigler uilleann pipes and whistles
San Francisco Girls Chorus
Valérie Sainte-Agathe artistic director
Written and Directed by James Cameron
Produced by James Cameron & Jon Landau
Music by James Horner
Rated PG-13
There will be one intermission.
Motion Picture, Artwork, Photos, ™ Twentieth Century Fox © 1997
Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox. All Rights Reserved.
Titanic Live is an Avex Classics International Production.
These concerts are sponsored by Ella Qing Hou and J. Sanford Miller.
About the Artists
Sarah Hicks
Sarah Hicks is a conductor, educator, arranger, producer, writer, and speaker committed to creating connections through music. She has collaborated with diverse artists including Hilary Hahn, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Rufus Wainwright, Ben Folds, Jennifer Hudson, Smokey Robinson, and Sting. Her passion for cross-genre partnerships led to a 2019 album with rap artist Dessa and the Minnesota Orchestra, where she is principal conductor of Live at Orchestra Hall.
Hicks made her San Francisco Symphony debut in July 2009 and has also worked with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Pops, Toronto Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, RTÉ Orchestra, Danish National Symphony, Czech National Symphony, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, and Malaysian Philharmonic. Her commitment to new music led to a micro-commission project, and her recording of new concertos, Triple Doubles, has been released by the Bridge label. Her interest in the intersection of mental health and music led to the production of a concert titled Music and the Mind.
Born in Japan and raised in Hawaii, Hicks is fluent in Japanese and holds degrees from Harvard University and the Curtis Institute of Music.
Alice Zawadzki
Alice Zawadzki is a vocalist, violinist, songwriter, and composer based in London. Her sound draws from her early exposure to New Orleans jazz and gospel, extensive classical training, and a continuous exploration of improvisation, poetry, and folk music from diverse traditions. She performs extensively as both a soloist and as a collaborator, with headline performances at major UK alternative and jazz venues and festivals.
Eric Rigler
For more than 30 years, Eric Rigler has been the predominant performer of Celtic bagpipes and Irish whistles heard on Oscar-winning films and Grammy-winning albums. His solos are familiar through the films Titanic, Braveheart, and Austin Powers, and television’s Battlestar Galactica, The Simpsons, and South Park. He also performed with Paul McCartney, Josh Groban, Phil Collins, Keith Urban, Bette Midler, Meatloaf, Dream, Tracy Chapman, Rod Stewart, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and many others.
San Francisco Girls Chorus
Established in 1978, the mission of the San Francisco Girls Chorus is to create outstanding performances featuring the unique and compelling sound of young women’s voices through an exemplary program committed to education and visionary leadership in the development of this art form. Under the direction of Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe, the San Francisco Girls Chorus has achieved an incomparable sound that underscores the unique clarity and force of impeccably trained treble voices fused with expressiveness and drama.
SFGC offers a sequential six-ensemble choral training program for girls, young women, and non-binary and gender-expansive youth, ages 4–18, from throughout the Bay Area. Ensembles include the semi-professional Concert Group and the professional-level performance, recording, and touring Premier Ensemble. A leading voice in the Bay Area and national music scenes, the chorus has produced award-winning concerts, recordings, and tours; empowered young women in music and other fields; enhanced and expanded the field of music for treble voices; and set the international standard for the highest level of performance and education.
Valérie Sainte-Agathe
Valérie Sainte-Agathe has led the San Francisco Girls Chorus as artistic director since 2013, transforming it into a leading force in the choral world. Under her leadership, SFGC has collaborated with the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, Chanticleer, Opera Parallèle, and Kronos Quartet. She has also led SFGC in performances for the New York Philharmonic Biennial Festival at Lincoln Center and collaborated with the Knights for the SHIFT Festival at the Kennedy Center. She was recently honored with the title Chevalière des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture and was included in the 2022 book Music Mavens: 15 Women of Note, published by the Chicago Review Press. She also serves as Chorale Director of the Philharmonia Baroque, which she joined in 2022.
San Francisco Girls Chorus
Sofía Bourgon-Trujillo
Avery Brandstetter
Elena Caravajal
Anushka Chandran
Chloe Chen
Cate Cross
Sofia Rose DeLuca
Samsara Zofia Dluzak
Emilia Dorie
Eloise Egan
Ariana Frey
Julia Howe
Angelina Jia
Jessie Li
Emily McLean
Ainara Nerad-Canet
Genevieve Ooi
Vianza Felisa Ruelos
Paloma Anais Siliezar
Vibhu Singh
Leonora Steward
Anayah Tin
Sara Wolfe
Ellie Jung Si Wong
Grace Zhao
Valérie Sainte-Agathe,
Artistic Director
