Martín Benvenuto, Artistic Director

Martín Benvenuto has established himself as one of the leading treble choir conductors in the San Francisco Bay Area. A native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, he has been Artistic Director for WomenSing since 2002. Active as a clinician, panelist, and guest conductor, Benvenuto is also Artistic Director of the Peninsula Women’s Chorus (PWC).

Recognized for his exacting technique, compelling presence, and a passion for drawing the finest choral tone, Benvenuto’s repertoire is extensive, including great landmarks of the treble repertoire as well as works by living composers. His choirs are dedicated to commissioning new works from leading composers such as Libby Larsen, Chen Yi, Stacy Garrop, Charles Griffin, Cristián Grases, Brian Holmes, and David Conte. In an unprecedented three-year project titled “Youth Inspiring Youth”, WomenSing will bring together young composers with young poets from the River of Words project, commissioning and premiering six new works for treble chorus.

“Choral music is a sort of rebelliousness, a movement against an artistic or political status quo. And what better way is there than a choral setting to surrender your ego to a good cause? People not only give of their time, they also give up their cherished medium of individual expression, the voice. You have to abandon its narcissism for the well being of the whole ensemble. In this day and age, when there is so little selflessness, choral singing is socially a very healthy activity.” Martín Benvenuto

Benvenuto highly values artistic collaborations: his choirs have collaborated with Veljo Tormis, Joseph Jennings, Karmina Silec, Charles Bruffy, California Shakespeare Theater, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, and the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus.

Benvenuto has prepared choirs for organizations such as the San Francisco Opera, the Oakland East Bay Symphony, the Redwood Symphony, and the Kronos Quartet, and for works such as Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Monteverdi’s Vespers, Britten’s St. Nicholas, Mahler’s Third Symphony, Holst’s The Planets, Stravinsky’s Mass, and Orff’s Carmina Burana.

An accomplished singer as well, Benvenuto has appeared as a tenor soloist in Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Vivaldi’s Magnificat, Mozart’s Requiem, Bach’s Cantata BWV 61, Beethoven’s Mass in C, Ramirez’s Misa Criolla, and others. As a member of the Westminster Symphonic Choir, he sang with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic under the batons of Kurt Masur, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Helmuth Rilling, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Joseph Flummerfelt.

Benvenuto holds a D.M.A. in choral conducting from Boston University, where he studied with Ann Howard Jones and the late Robert Shaw. He earned his master’s degree from Westminster Choir College, majoring both in Choral Conducting and Voice Performance and Pedagogy, studying under Joseph Flummerfelt, Elem Eley and Julia Kemp. His undergraduate degrees in choral conducting and composition are from the Universidad Católica Argentina.

Paul Caccamo, Accompanist

Paul Caccamo is a frequent performer in the Bay Area. With twenty years of professional accompanying experience, he has appeared in numerous concerts throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia, presenting recitals of art song, chamber music, and solo piano repertoire, including live radio performances for National Public Radio. He is also active as a recording artist and vocal coach. Currently Paul serves as accompanist for the Campolindo High School Choral Music program as well as WomenSing. He received a Master of Music degree in Piano Accompanying and Chamber Music from the Eastman School of Music, and a Bachelor of Science from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.