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Pacifica Performances (formerly PAHC) is a non-profit primarily volunteer arts organization dedicated to bringing professional quality performing arts programs to the Coastside communities. Integral to Pacifica Performances' presentation style is the use of intimate performance settings which enhance and enrich the experience for both the listener and performer. The casual and relaxed atmosphere allows the performer to share thoughts about the music with the audience.
Our performers are the cream of the Bay Area professional crop from outstanding jazz artists such as Dmitri Matheny; Larry Dunlap and Bobbe Norris; Larry Vuckovich; and Kim Nalley to members of the San Francisco Opera and Symphony Orchestras. Also on our programs are international musical groups and soloists such as Golden Bough; Viviana Guzman; and Jim and Morning Nichols.
Year-round, Pacifica Performances presents four and often five concerts per month plus a number of free Koncerts for Kids throughout the year. Admission fees are kept reasonably low, especially with family or individual memberships, to help develop future audiences and make our programming accessible to families. We encourage children to attend our concerts and offer free admission to youths and children under 18 years of age.
Our musical programs are supported by the Ross McKee Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, City of Pacifica, Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, private donors, many individual members and Bay Area corporations. Please join us won't you, for our "Concerts by the Sea" and our annual "Pacifica Jazz and Art Festival"?
History and Mission of Pacific Performances
Pacifica Performances was founded in 1976 as the Pacifica Arts and Heritage Council, which assisted with art shows, sponsored art, dance, poetry, and calligraphy classes, and provided a meeting place for various community arts groups. Over time, many of these activities were subsumed into the Pacifica Parks, Beaches and Recreation Department. Today the focus of Pacifica Performances’ programs is on the presentation of a variety of high quality music programs and other performances for adults, families, and children. The organization’s mission is to make affordable, professional quality performing arts events accessible to the residents of Pacifica, the Coastside and nearby communities.
To implement our mission, we present an annual concert series, Concerts by the Sea, that features a diverse array of professional Bay Area and touring artists and ensembles. The series consists of approximately 55 classical and jazz music, drama, poetry, and dance events each year. Pacifica Performances also produces the annual Pacifica Jazz and Art Festival (suspended this year because of financial concerns), operates and manages the 175-seat Sanchez Concert Hall, and conducts arts education programs in collaboration with Pacifica public schools.
For many years, the organization staged concerts in a variety of Pacifica locations – a community center, a neighborhood firehouse, an Episcopal church. Then, in 1996, a group of visual artists renovated a former school building scheduled for demolition into the Sanchez Art Center and convinced the City to give them a long-term lease on the venue. Pacifica Performances subsequently secured the rights to develop the former school’s multi-purpose room into a 175-seat concert hall with adjoining large kitchen and office space. We moved our operations into the Center in 1997 and in 2001 negotiated a ten-year lease with the City. In January 1998, Pacifica Performances received a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to build a new stage and to install professional lighting equipment in the Concert Hall.
Since 1999, the number of performances in our concert season has doubled, resulting in greater diversity in our programming. Featured artists in 2002 included the Golden West Opera Company; the 10th Avenue Jazz Band; Brazilian singer/composer/multi-instrumentalist Celia Malheiros; jazz singer Brenda Boykin; the jazz ensemble Quintet of the Hot Club of San Francisco; the theater group Word for Word; poets Janice Mirikitani and Ishmael Reed as special guests in a two day poetry festival also featuring Pacifica poets; solo recitals by classical pianists Matthew Laurence Edwards and Yuan Sheng, the first teaching assistant for renowned Bach specialist and pianist, Rosalyn Tureck; and a jazz family performance of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by flugelhornist Dmitri Matheny. In addition to the extensive high caliber musical fare that is our trademark, Pacifica Performances expanded our offerings to include dance performances by Sha Sha Higby; Chilean flutist / dancer / poet / photographer Viviana Guzman; and Celtic dancers from the Boyle School of Dance performing with the veteran Irish music group Golden Bough; chanting Tibetan Buddhist monks from India in a healing ceremony; a fingerstyle guitar series with Richard Smith, 2001 National Fingerstyle Guitar Champion; a cabaret series with Wesla Whitfield, Mike Greensill and others; and a very special sing-along of Handel’s Messiah by the Coastside Community Orchestra and soloists with Kay Raney conductor. The 2001-2002 season also saw the birth of three new performing groups sponsored by Pacifica Performances: the Pacifica Seaside Singers, an ongoing a cappella vocal ensemble founded by Ellis French that rehearses in our concert hall once a week and performs regularly; SanJazz, a jazz group led by David Ilvedson, which also meets once a week to rehearse at the Sanchez Concert Hall and performs for special events and dances and The Barefoot Play Readers Repertory Theatre Company directed by David Guilmette, rehearsing and performing several shows each year.
In 1998, Pacifica Performances helped to inaugurate the Pacifica Jazz and Art Festival, which has been presented in partnership with the City of Pacifica Parks, Beaches and Recreation Department on an annual basis. Presented in May, the festivals have been an opportunity for Pacifica Performances to increase its audience and present some of the best jazz artists in the Bay Area and beyond. The 2002 Festival was a huge success, with Mike Vax, Primary Colors, Three Tenors/No Opera, Jim Rothermel, Larry Dunlap, and Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz playing at the Sanchez Concert Hall in two busy weekends of live jazz. Since presenting multiple performance groups involves multiple expenses, we hope to resume our festival in 2004. The organization also presents a two-pronged education program, including an in-school assembly program featuring performing artists that appear in our annual presenting series, and free Saturday morning performances, Koncerts for Kids, for young children and their families at the Sanchez Concert Hall.
Pacifica Performances’ constituents come from Pacifica, the Coastside, and throughout San Mateo County, with a small percentage traveling from San Francisco and the East Bay. Last year, we reached 5,500 people with our programming, ranging in age from toddlers (at children's concerts) to senior citizens. Our low ticket prices enable audience members from across the economic spectrum to attend. We have in recent years begun to diversify our audiences by increasing our efforts to promote regional tourism into Pacifica.
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