Vocal Works
Community Projects
Until recently, I had been a member of a local chorus for 15 years (1996-2011), and although it has been tremendously successful in getting publicity and drawing audiences, I've been acutely aware of many other local performing arts organizations that have been struggling — playing to token audiences but doing excellent work. I wondered if I might help some way. Below are several projects that are my ongoing contributions to the local performing arts community.
— Dick Frantzreb
1. The Placer Performance Calendar. The Sacramento, California region has a population well over 2 million. That includes over 300,000 in Placer County (where I live). Yet the performing arts activities seem to take a back seat to those in the "giant" (the city and county of Sacramento), directly to our west. We get less publicity, and even our residents are inclined to think that they need to go to the "big city" for quality entertainment.
To adjust the balance a bit, I started the Placer Performance Calendar in September of 2009. In it, I strive to cover all of the performing arts events in South Placer County (excluding far-away Tahoe), plus the nearby city of Folsom, which is in Sacramento County. Currently, I monitor 100 organizations (including high schools) carefully, visiting their websites on a regular basis, and picking up ad hoc events by monitoring local newspapers and other online media. I don't expect these organizations to send me announcements of their performances. Instead, I go looking for the information they're putting on their websites. It's the only way to ensure that the Calendar is complete. Even then, sometimes phone calls and e-mails are necessary.
The Placer Performance Calendar still isn't widely known, but its influence is growing, and the performing organizations really appreciate the publicity. You can view it at this link: www.placerperformancecalendar.com.
2. The Sacramento Choral Calendar. I've sung in choruses for over 40 years, and I love choral music of all types. For the years I was working so intently in getting ready for concerts and promoting my own chorus, I was only vaguely aware of other choruses in the greater Sacramento area. So in September of 2011, I acted on an idea that had been building for more than a year. I launched the Sacramento Choral Calendar as an attempt to identify the active, independent choruses in the region and publicize their public performances.
I maintain the Sacramento Choral Calendar in the same way as the Placer Performance Calendar, monitoring websites instead of relying on contributed information from the 50 choruses currently represented. I don't track all the high schools or churches systematically (there are so many of them!), but I do include information on their concerts when they submit it.
Both Calendars have opened new worlds for me. I've discovered wonderful new events that I would surely have missed, and I think I would continue to maintain these websites even if no one else visited them. You can visit the Sacramento Choral Calendar at this link: www.sacchoralcalendar.com.
3. Sacramento Choral News. As soon as I started tracking choral concerts, I began to learn of other bits of information that wouldn't qualify as calendar entries, but that I thought would be of interest to chorus members in the Sacramento area. So in early October, 2011 I initiated a blog called the Sacramento Choral News. I see it as an effort to create a community of people who love choral music and who can benefit from sharing information about local activities and choral music generally. It's quite new as of this writing, so who knows what direction it may ultimately take? You can visit the blog at: http://sacchoralnews.blogspot.com.