ARTISTIC DIRECTOR’S NOTE Vince Peterson Founder and Artistic Director This year, I had the honor of being awarded The 2018 Louis Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal from Chorus America. It seems fitting that, in our Tenth Anniversary Season, I would use the space of my Artistic Director’s Note in the Annual Report to add my comments and response to this honor. Louis Botto was a household name for me growing up. Chanticleer always seemed like an entity that was so close yet so far away. When we would talk about them in classes during my undergraduate years, I remember thinking that I would probably never sing for them, write for them or anything like that. I would always be an admirer from afar. They seemed so unattainable. That’s why when Joe Jennings, then music director, actively sought me out to be his pianist and assistant conductor for The Golden Gate Men’s Chorus in San Francisco, I was bewildered and, quite frankly, shocked. What ensued after that was two years of the most difficult, yet joyful music-making and training as a choral musician I had ever experienced up to that point in my musical life. I often joke, saying that they should have given me my master’s degree just for working there for two years. During that time, I met Matt Oltman, of course, who did my same job with Joe, but at Chanticleer. We had instant empathy and understanding between us, a knowing glance with each other here and there. Still, Chanticleer felt like movie stars to me even then. To know, today, that what I built in New York in Choral Chameleon led me “home to San Francisco,” and a professional connection with them is an incredible feeling. Furthermore, to know that the first piece they brought to life was an arrangement I wrote of a song by one of the founding members of Chameleon was almost more than I could fathom. But this: receiving the ultimate acknowledgment that a choral music entrepreneur can receive and being handed an award with the Chanticleer founder’s name engraved on it has been the most definitive moment of my life - not just my musical career. Also, to be the only conductor born and raised in San Francisco, yet to receive this award is a shining descant to an already astonishing melody. To know that cherished colleagues, including my partner at Choral Chameleon, Nicole Belmont, thought enough of me to nominate me for this award, is deeply humbling. I can only hope that I will continue to live up to their visions of me. I will always strive to assume the posture of service to others and to look outward from myself to see what the choral music world needs, rather than just what I want or what personally interests me. I am so grateful and honored. Thank you.
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