San Fernando Valley Master Chorale

The San Fernando Valley Master Chorale (SFVMC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit performance organization for choral singers representing the San Fernando Valley and surrounding communities.

SFVMC was founded in the spring of 1999. It was sponsored by the Premiere Chorale, a professional ensemble established by Terry Danne in 1977 under the auspices of the Bureau of Music, City of Los Angele.

SFVMC’s major performances have included Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Handel’s Messiah, Verdi’s Requiem, and John Rutter’s Gloria. The Master Chorale has appeared at venues including the Madrid Theatre, Los Angeles Pierce College, the Hall of Liberty at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

In 2016, Charlie Kim became the Artistic Director of SFVMC, bringing renewed enthusiasm and a fresh artistic vision to the ensemble. Since then, his mission has been to honor Terry Danne’s original vision by creating opportunities for students, community volunteers, and professional musicians to collaborate in performances ranging from beloved classical masterworks to newly commissioned compositions.

In the spring of 2017, Kim began collaborating with composer-in-residence Sergio Barer to premiere several original works, including Moses, an Oratorio, performed with full orchestra at Wilshire Boulevard Temple in downtown Los Angeles, and The Nightmare and the Dream, presented in 2022 at Sinai Temple in Westwood.

Over the years, the SFVMC has had the honor of collaborating with numerous arts organizations throughout the San Fernando Valley and greater Los Angeles, including the San Fernando Valley Youth Chorus, LA Opera, LA Symphonic Winds, the LA Pierce College Choir, the Valley College Choir, Valley Opera Performing Arts, the Northridge United Methodist Chancel Choir, the Lark Musical Society Treble Choir “Tziatzan,” and the San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, SFVMC remained active by creating a virtual choir program with online rehearsals, allowing singers from across America to join SFVMC by submitting individual audio tracks and video recordings that were combined into several full live-streamed concerts for audiences to enjoy from home. These virtual performances included “Celebrating Bernstein,” “Voices Rising,” “Choir-antine Christmas,” and “American Voices.”

In the spring of 2022, SFVMC welcomed John Bergquist as Associate Artistic Director. Since joining the organization, Bergquist has conducted several full concert programs, including “Holidays in the Valley: Celebrate the Mystery” in 2023 and “From Campfire to Concert Hall: A Legacy of American Folk Music” in 2025. SFVMC has also had the honor of premiering many of Bergquist’s original compositions, and in 2026, he was appointed Composer-in-Residence for the San Fernando Valley Master Chorale.

Looking ahead to the 2026 season, SFVMC is proud to be among the select organizations invited to perform as part of one of the San Fernando Valley’s most anticipated cultural events: the reopening of the historic Madrid Theatre in winter 2026.

San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra

Since its foundation in the 1940s, the San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra (SFVSO) has presented the finest performances of symphonic music to the communities of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. It is the region’s leading symphony orchestra and one of its premier performing arts organizations. Led by Music Director and Conductor James Domine, the SFVSO plays a leading role in the musical life of Southern California.

The SFVSO frequently collaborates with community organizations and local businesses to produce community outreach programs designed for diverse audiences of all ages. This mission was started with our founding conductor, Ilmari Ronka, and his wife, Loraine Vera Ronka, nee Aalbu, in 1946. As the baton passed to James Swift and then Elmer Bernstein, the value of music for all audiences was cemented. Musical groups were challenged during the 1970s, but the orchestra remained, hiring Lois Johnson, one of the first female orchestra conductors in the region, until her departure in 1990.

In the ‘90s, the orchestra baton saw a period of dormancy before its leadership was brought under the direction of James Domine, bringing the Van Nuys Civic Orchestra Association into the San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra family in 1992.

Over the decades-long history of the orchestra, it has provided hundreds of live concerts of standard classical and unique original repertoire to the public, featuring some of the best local and international musical artists while also highlighting traditional and more unique instruments. In doing so, the SFVSO endeavors to Bring Great Music Close to Home, focusing on providing full-scale, live orchestral performances to easily accessible, local venues.

The Orchestra also enjoys the ability to provide an active educational outreach program, providing for high-school-aged students through the San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra Music Scholarship Awards Competition, the annual Music Teachers Association of California Concerto Competition, and the Domine Scholarship Awards.

The San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra is a recipient of grants from the County of Los Angeles Department of Arts and Culture, the City of Los Angeles, the Rotary Club, and various other corporate foundations; it also receives support from individual subscribers and concert patrons.