A History of Georgia Festival Chorus:
Heartsongs with Spirit
Now in our fourth decade, the Georgia Festival Chorus (GFC) is a volunteer community chorus renowned regionally and throughout the world for stirring performances of sacred classics, anthems, hymn arrangements, spirituals, and folk songs. GFC was founded in the fall of 1987 as the Cobb Festival Chorus under the direction of esteemed basso Frank Boggs (1927-2021). After 23 years at the Westminster School where he directed choral groups and started the orchestra program, Frank was considering his future opportunities when his friend the Reverend Lewis Abbott said to him, “Frank, if you don’t have a chorus to direct, you will be miserable.” Persuaded by this encouragement, Mr. Boggs put a small ad in the Marietta newspaper, revealing his plan to start a community chorus. Eighteen singers passed the first auditions and membership quickly grew to 68 during the first season.
The premier concert season featured Christmas portions of Handel’s Messiah, complete with small orchestra, performed in churches all over Cobb County. Our early repertoire consisted of sacred, classical, operatic, and musical theater choral works, and the chorus performed in venues as diverse as the Atlanta Festival of Trees, Atlanta Rotary Club, Atlanta Interfaith Prayer Breakfast, Galleria, Salvation Army, the Fox Theater (during the 1996 Olympics), and weekday evening church meetings. During the early 90’s each Christmas the chorus was invited to perform in “Carols by Candlelight” concerts throughout Georgia and Tennessee, and by the late 90’s established local Atlanta area “Carols by Candlelight” concerts in addition to the usual 3-5 concerts each season. From 1990 to 2002, the chorus regularly partnered with the Cobb Symphony and its then music director, Steven Byess, to perform choral works including Messiah and a stage production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s operetta “Gondoliers” to name a few.
In 1990, the chorus began a tradition of taking concert tours periodically, traveling to many destinations in Europe including England, Scotland, Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Italy, and Germany, and also closer to home in Alaska and Texas. It has been a privilege to have sung in many revered venues including Westminster Abbey, Royal Albert Hall, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Copenhagen Cathedral, and St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Most recently, the chorus traveled to Italy for the 2024 Tuscany International Choral Festival.
As membership and popularity grew it became apparent that the chorus should expand its name recognition beyond that of a single county, and in 1998 the name was changed to Georgia Festival Chorus (GFC). Over the years the GFC produced ten CDs, and in 2016 the chorus partnered with Johnny Hall of One Voice Mission to record soundtracks for the One Voice Hymnal project.
In 2019 when Frank retired as Director Emeritus, David Scott stepped into the role of Artistic Director. David has sung with and assisted in directing the group since its founding, first as Assistant Director and later as Associate Director. Since his tenure as Artistic Director began, GFC has expanded its activities beyond live concert presentations.
As a way to continue to bring music to our audiences during the pandemic in 2020, the Georgia Festival Chorus launched the first Musical Advent Calendar project featuring some of Georgia’s favorite musicians and our GFC choristers performing holiday hymns and carols during the Advent season. Because of the enthusiastic and warm audience response, it has become an annual event involving the production of 24 Christmas Advent videos to be released daily to cover December 1 through December 24.These professionally produced videos can be found on YouTube, Facebook, and our website.
In Fall 2022, the chorus formed “Voice of Joy,” a community outreach group of GFC volunteers who regularly visit senior living and rehab facilities to entertain and engage residents with Christmas carols, hymns and sacred choral music throughout the year.
To provide educational opportunities for future choral directors, in 2023 GFC formed an ongoing partnership with Georgia State University where second-year students from the University’s School of Music master’s program hone their skills with our professional team and chorus.
Now performing five to seven choral concerts each season, the Georgia Festival Chorus is committed to serving our audiences through uplifting sacred and spiritual choral works. With our singing and music, we want to create an atmosphere where audiences, both old and new, feel a connection to the chorus members, each other, and the music.