Robert Geary, Artistic Director of the San Francisco Choral Society, is also founder of Volti (formerly the San Francisco Chamber Singers)

and the Piedmont Boys and Girls Choirs, and director of the Golden Gate International Children’s Choral Festival. For fourteen years Geary was the director of the Baroque Choral Guild, and he served as the Music Director of the First Unitarian Universalist Church in San Francisco for thirteen years. A champion of contemporary music,

Geary and his choirs have earned numerous national and international awards and have performed throughout North America, Europe, the United Kingdom, Russia, and the Far East. Mr. Geary also has prepared his choirs for some of the world’s leading conductors, including Kurt Herbert Adler, Herbert Blomstedt, Edo de Waart, Kent Nagano, Krzysztof Penderecki, Helmuth Rilling, Robert Shaw, and Dale Warland. He has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, Koch International and Swiss International. His choirs have frequently performed for radio, television, opera, symphony and music festivals, nationally and internationally. Geary holds a degree in composition and earned his graduate degree

in choral conducting as a student of Howard Swan.

Bryan Baker has performed more than a thousand concerts across the United States and in Europe as solo and collaborative pianist. In the Bay Area, he has appeared in Davies Symphony Hall, the Stern Grove Festival, the Old First Concert Series, the Shenson Recital Series, the Oakmont Recital Series, Concerts by the Sea and Noontime Concerts. He recently performed in the British Virgin Islands and gave the inaugural concert of the new Petrof Recital Series in Ashland, Oregon. He has played Mozart’s Piano Concerto #21 with the Community Music Center Orchestra, will play Shostakovich Piano Concerto #1 with the Kensington Symphony this June and will do a concert with the San Francisco Concerto Orchestra next season. Active on the podium as well, he conducted the San Francisco Choral Society and the Chamber Orchestra of the West in the summer of 2000 in performances of Duruflé’s Requiem and Rutter’s Gloria. Dr. Baker holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in music and serves on the faculties of San Francisco State University and Foothill College. He is Music Director of the Masterworks Chorale in San Mateo, Music Director at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, and maintains a private teaching studio and is an active vocal coach.

 Jessica House Steward became SF Choral’s executive director in May, 2019. She is an arts administrator with over 15 years of experience in organization development, marketing and communications. Most recently, she served as acting executive director of the San Francisco Early Music Society (SFEMS), where she

managed operations, finances, marketing/communications and development. She previously served as that organization’s development director and administrator. Ms. House Steward has also worked as a

management consultant, supporting senior executives in organizations navigating change initiatives, including growth and scaling, and leadership development. Ms. House Steward has

a deep musical background that has inspired her arts administration career. She is a classically trained soprano with degrees/diplomas in vocal performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Texas Tech University and

the Manhattan School of Music.

Originally from the Bay Area, Stacey Helley,

mezzo-soprano, ran off to New York City to study Opera when she met and fell in love with Early Music. After singing many mezzo roles, she

earned her Masters and DMA in Early Music Vocal Performance from USC, where she won a Presser Graduate Award for a recording of early Baroque monody. She can be heard on iTunes with the

USC Baroque Sinfonia (along with Jason Yoshida) on D’ye Hear the News? Selections from the 1689 London Popery Collections. She founded Favolare Ensemble to explore late Renaissance and early Baroque vocal works (website coming soon), and also sings with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. She funnels her passion for the arts into her day jobs doing administrative work for both the San Francisco Early Music Society and the SF Choral Society.

Katie comes to San Francisco Choral Society with more than ten years of non-profit administration and leadership experience working in humanitarian, toxic stress and mental health fields.  An academic background in communication studies and anthropology honed her passion for active listening, community and social justice. Katie is involved with Rebuild South Sudan, a peace and education non-profit started by a former Lost Boy of South Sudan.