Kathleen McGuire learned to talk and sing simultaneously, and harmonized while singing Methodist hymns on family car trips at age 5. Today, she is the artistic director and conductor of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus and conducts the Community Women's Orchestra. She also co-founded the GLAM Youth Choir.
This year, McGuire is one of the community grand marshals in the San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade.
With relatives on both sides of her family that included a pianist, opera singer, and choir director; a high school art teacher mom; and a gay brother and aunt; the beat of musical blood pumps through McGuire's Aussie veins.
"By 11, I was hooked on music," said McGuire, who studied classical guitar at age 10 in the Melbourne suburb of Seaford, before winning a scholarship to a private Anglican girls' school where she studied clarinet and trumpet, and joined concert bands.
"I couldn't get enough," she said.
She earned a bachelor's degree in composition from Melbourne University, a master's degree in conducting from Surrey University (UK), and a doctorate in music arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she first laid eyes on her eventual partner, Stephanie Smith.
She has written six dissertations on such topics as Japanese theory on Western music, and on individual composers including British chamber choir broadcaster John Rutter, and Gareth Valentine's AIDS Requiem. Music's relation to AIDS was the theme of one of her first papers.
She has also been singled out for her reputation for charming audiences.
"I always feel comfortable talking to audiences whether it's stuffed shirt classical or the Gay Men's Chorus' Christmas Eve concert," she said. "I think that comes from teaching high school for many years. When you teach you have to hold a room full of people's attention. If you can do that as a teacher, then you can with any walk of life.
"To some extent with my short, spiky hair people can probably figure out I'm a lesbian. In Colorado my hair was longer. I looked more conservative. I am more comfortable in my lesbian skin now, too."
McGuire is known as a champion of contemporary composers, though her repertoire of orchestral, choral, opera, and ballet music from the classical era includes operas by Britten, Puccini, Mozart, Rossini, and Bizet.
"It's relevant to who we are today," she said of current composers. "Most music we are doing now generally has a higher purpose. All groups – especially the Gay Men's Chorus – are making music for a reason, [and use] music that allows us to share a mission and a message."
McGuire first had the opportunity to guest conduct the 30-member Community Women's Orchestra in Oakland two years ago, and just ended her first season leading the ensemble, which reads, rehearses, and performs female-composed music.
Of the non-hierarchical orchestra, founded in 1985, with which she recently played the trumpet in an un-conducted chamber music concert, McGuire said, "There's an informal pecking order, very diplomatic, a consensus-based group. Quite unusual, but not unusual for the East Bay."
Conducting an orchestra has helped her grow beyond her comfort zone, cutting her teeth, keeping skills honed, and mentally pumping her conductor's muscles by contrasting a chorus' four parts, verses an orchestra's 30, and the similarities between the two in physicality, logistics, unison and harmony, "in terms of what goes through your head," she said.
"Forty is where you hit your stride as a conductor," said McGuire, 41, calling her 25-year professional development on target. "It takes 20 years to know what you're doing."
A scientist with equal education would earn twice her income, she noted, thus conductors commonly wear several hats in this age of nonprofit arts, and San Francisco's cost of living.
"Hence all the jobs, to pay a mortgage," said McGuire, who recently purchased a South of Market condo with Smith, who directs the Lesbian and Gay Chorus.
"Two female musicians is not a big income," she said.
McGuire also co-founded and chairs the steering committee of the non-auditioned Gay, Lesbian and Allied Musicians Youth Choir, which currently has 12 members.
After soliciting singers through posting fliers, the Gay Educator's Network, and queer youth groups, GLAM first performed last month at an East Bay queer youth conference, and will perform in Vancouver this month.
The members, who choose their music autonomously, travel from all over the Bay Area to the rehearsal studio at Page and Market streets.
"Some people coming to rehearsals with GLAM say it's the only safe space to hang out at as a gay person," said McGuire. "Some travel four hours to get here. Some have family support. Others have none."
In addition to all that, she has conducted Convent of the Sacred Heart's 30-member girls' chorus for two years.
The chorus
San Francisco was the first of the world's 200 known gay choruses to use the word "gay" in its name. The group first appeared publicly on the steps of San Francisco City Hall in November 1978, the evening of the murders of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
Now in its 28th season, the chorus has performed everything from Brahms to Rodgers and Hammerstein, accompanied by guests including Joan Baez, Carol Channing, Deborah Voigt, and a Moscow String Quartet.
McGuire became artistic director of the Gay Men's Chorus in 2000. She said creating a chorus show is a collaborative effort, sometimes taking several years to bring to fruition, and hinging on marketing, chorus member views, and public taste.
"It's a balancing act," she said. "We need to have integrity. It needs to be something meaningful to us, but that will attract and speak to an audience. We always have to have fun."
In brainstorming a show's theme, McGuire makes decisions by bouncing ideas off the singers (some with music doctorates themselves), feeling out their comfort with a piece and its technical complexity (classical, foreign language), or surveying them by e-mail, usually receiving more than a hundred useful responses in return.
The production committee, composed of eight musically trained section leaders, including one music store employee with an encyclopedic knowledge of lyrics, provides a mix of ideas.
Although she has the power of veto, the final say, she added, "I find it's dangerous to make decisions like this in a vacuum."
Next comes soliciting a guest artist, and scheduling a venue stage that fits 200 bodies. The annual "Home for the Holidays" show only features 120 chorus members due to the Castro Theatre's small stage.
In addition to its subscription series, the Gay Men's Chorus performs 50 more concerts such as AIDS fundraisers, raising $50,000 per year.
Though no one is turned away for lack of funds, chorus members pay thousands of dollars annually – $200 per year in membership dues, plus tuxedo rental and travel expenses. The group, with wide-ranging income levels, and ages – 20-something to 70-plus – also contributes to a scholarship program for needier members.
"Some of our best chorus members didn't pass the audition," said McGuire, who suggests singing coaches to some. "They came back six months later and passed with flying colors, because they worked so hard.
"My challenge as a conductor is to keep them all motivated," said McGuire. "It has to be interesting enough so the people with music degrees aren't bored. The same challenge any teacher faces with different levels of skill."
Since each concert is so different, drawing its audience from diverse populations every time, the group has a small number of concert season subscribers – around 150, compared to the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles' 1,000 subscribers, for example. Most of its income comes from ticket sales, not corporate support, and foundation grants.
"In the arts it's difficult to sustain that," said McGuire, adding that Kinkos donates, and United Airlines provides touring airfare. "We don't have that much money."