Volti’s professional vocalists, under the direction of founder and Artistic Director Robert Geary, are dedicated to the discovery, creation, and performance of new vocal music. The ensemble’s mission is to foster and showcase contemporary American music and composers, and to introduce contemporary vocal music from around the world to local audiences.

Many singers and composers, past and present, at Volti’s 40th Anniversary Gala, May 2019

Robert Geary accepts awards at the 2009 Chorus America national conference.  Bob’s in the center, with Alice Parker on his right and David Lang on his left.

Volti has collaborated with many distinguished theatrical and musical organizations, both on stage and in recording. Over the years, we have:

• premiered the “Angel Island Oratorio” with the Del Sol String Quartet. Under a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Hewlett 50 Arts Commissions program, Chinese-American composer Huang Ruo created a bilingual oratorio for string quartet and chamber chorus, inspired by poetry inscribed on the walls of the Angel Island barracks between 1910 and 1940. Volti later returned to the work in a collaboration with Oakland Ballet;

• joined ODC/Dance in Joby Talbot’s “Path of Miracles,” an hour-long immersive, site-specific experience exploring the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage across Spain, created by choreographer KT Nelson. Sold-out performances in 2018 were followed by two repeat runs at Grace Cathedral the following year and in 2023, at the re-opening of the renovated Presidio Theatre on tour in Arizona in 2019, and most recently at St. Joseph’s Arts Society in 2026;

• maintained a long-running collaboration with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, commissioning and premiering new works together across multiple seasons, most recently in 2026;

• appeared at Festival Napa Valley on multiple occasions as part of a long-running collaboration, most recently in 2024;

• commissioned and premiered Pamela Z’s Ink, first presented online in 2021 and later in live performance, and gave the world premiere of Caroline Shaw’s Ochre in 2022 as part of a commissioning consortium with The Crossing, Cantori New York, and Notre Dame Vocale;

• released a new CD of works commissioned by Volti, “the color of there seen from here,” in 2019;

• performed Terry Riley’s “Sun Rings” with the Kronos Quartet for Cal Performances in May 2016 and subsequently recorded it at Skywalker Sound on a Grammy-winning album named one of the best 100 albums of 2019 by music critic Ted Gioia;

• recorded music of seven contemporary American composers with the New Century Chamber Orchestra at Skywalker Sound for the CD “December Celebration”;

• expanded to 32 singers to perform the California premiere of “Become Desert” by John Luther Adams with Seattle Symphony, presented by Cal Performances in 2018;

• performed by invitation at the first two Bard Music West festivals in 2017 and 2018, “The World of Gyorgy Ligeti” and “The World of Henry Cowell”;

• provided the chorus for a new opera by Kurt Rohde, “Death With Interruptions,” performed with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, both at its premiere in March 2015 and its revival in November 2017;

• sent eight singers from Volti to perform Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia for Eight Voices and Orchestra with the UC Davis Symphony under Christian Baldini;

• performed by invitation at the inaugural New Music Gathering in 2015, the only vocal group invited to perform.

Past partners have included Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, George Coates Performance Works, Earplay, SF Contemporary Music Players, the Berkeley Symphony, the Oakland Symphony, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, San Francisco Sinfonietta, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and others. In April 2013 we presented the West Coast premiere of David Lang’s major choral work, battle hymns, in collaboration with the San Francisco Choral Society, Piedmont Children’s Choirs, and the Philadelphia-based Leah Stein Dance Company.

In addition to touring in the United States and Germany, the group was for many years the Choir in Residence of the Newport Music Festival in Rhode Island. Volti’s performances have been broadcast in the Bay Area on KALW, KQED, KKHI, KDFC, and KUSF; nationally on Monitor Radio, Voice of America, and National Public Radio; and internationally on American Armed Forces Radio and Swiss International Radio.

In 2003-04, Volti inaugurated the Choral Arts Laboratory. Over the program’s 15-year history, 16 young American composers enjoyed the opportunity to work with Volti’s professional vocalists as they prepare a new work for performance. The program is currently on hiatus. 

In addition to the commissions and premieres of the concert season, Volti continues its commitment to education by producing the annual Choral Institute for High School Singers. This innovative program, developed by Robert Geary, provides concentrated training and performance opportunities for multiple choirs numbering up to 200 students over the course of an intensive weekend schedule. Volti’s professional singers serve as the resident choir and faculty and, along with Bob, lead rehearsals and teach voice lessons, classes, and seminars. These sessions are designed to give a focused and concentrated training experience to high school singers in an atmosphere that encourages, inspires and supports emotional and intellectual growth in a highly structured and creative musical environment.