New Artistic Director Announcement

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Paul Flight, a noted choral conductor and singer, will become our Artistic Director beginning next season.  A former member of such distinguished ensembles as The Waverly Consort, Pomerium Musices, and the New York Collegium, he brings a wealth of expertise to the direction of the Schola Cantorum San Francisco.

Flight is in his third season as Artistic Director of the California Bach Society, a venerable Bay Area choir devoted to the performance of music from the Baroque and Renaissance periods.  In addition, he is Artistic Director of two other ensembles: The Haydn Singers, a chamber choir he founded in 2005 dedicated to the performance of music by Haydn, Mozart, and their contemporaries, and Chora Nova, an East Bay chorus rapidly gaining a reputation for interesting and innovative programming.  Flight is also in his eighth season as Principal Conductor of the Madison Early Music Festival (Wisconsin), where he has directed masterworks by Bach, Handel, Telemann, Vivaldi, Purcell, Dufay and Guerrero.  Paul has twice been a Visiting Associate Professor of Music at the University of California at Berkeley, directing the Department’s top choral ensembles.  He conducted an operatic double-bill production of Gustav Holst’s Savitri and Darius Milhaud’s Les malheurs d'Orphèe for Mills College, and in 2003 he also sang the title role in Philip Glass’ Akhnaten for Oakland Opera-Theater.

Flight received his doctorate from Indiana University, where he studied conducting with Robert Porco. His research focused on the Venetian composer Giovanni Croce (1557-1609) and he has recorded a program featuring the music of Croce for Harmonia, a nationally syndicated radio show.  An articulate musician, Flight recently appeared as a guest on KALW radio’s performing arts program, My Favorite Things, and has lectured on musical history and form as a Visiting Professor at Mills College.