Ghiberti Center for Culture

Performance at Grace Cathedral:The Ghiberti Foundation supports the performing arts at Grace Cathedral through a high-quality series of musical and theatrical performances with the goal of bringing performers representing diverse cultures and musical disciplines to Grace Cathedral. The cathedral is a glorious space both for self-produced collaborative concerts and as a rental space for other organizations, both local and international. Performances produced by the Ghiberti Foundation include free organ recitals and concerts by the Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys, as well as collaborations with select groups. In recent years, the Ghiberti Foundation has co-produced concerts with the San Francisco's finest brass ensemble, The Bay Brass, SFJAZZ, ODC Dance Company, Marin Theatre Company, San Francisco Silent Film Festival, and the Alexander String Quartet, among many others.Education:The Ghiberti Foundation provides support to The Community Preschool, Grace Cathedral, which serves low-income families by offering one-third of its enrollment a full scholarship to the families in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco and sliding scale tuition to another third of its students.Public Conversation:The Forum at Grace Cathedral, produced by The Ghiberti Foundation, is a central plank of the cathedral's expansive education program and its commitment to hosting public discussions and civic conversations for the city of San Francisco and wider Bay Area community. The Forum promotes the open discussion of ideas about faith and ethics in relation to the issues of our day. It hosts interviews with leading public figures and panel discussions with politicians, artists, writers, scientists, musicians, theologians and many others. It collaborates with the leading cultural institutions and universities of the Bay Area to bring the most innovative and interesting thinkers to our public space.Artist in Residence:The Ghiberti Foundation is committed to new arts initiatives, as embodied by its Artist in Resident program. The Ghiberti Foundation provides world class artists with opportunities to create new works, allowing artists both a venue and a paid opportunity to create. Launched in 2012, artists in residence include playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith, visual artist Anne Patterson, light and sound artists Elaine Buckholtz and Floor van de Velde, video artists Jim Campbell and Benjamin Bergery (their installation, entitled "Jacob's Dream: A Luminous Path," is still on view in the cathedral), spoken word poet Sarah Kay, and visual artist Sukey Bryan (one of her works, The Great Hawk Mobile, is still on view at the Cathedral School for Boys). Internationally-celebrated choreographer Alonzo King created a new work entitled "Grace," danced by his company LINES Ballet in two sold-out performances in early 2020. After a hiatus during the pandemic, New York and Paris-based artist Lee Mingwei presented his monumental work Our Labyrinth for Grace in 2022, a twelve-hour meditation on the ephemeral nature of our lives, in which three dancers take turns sweeping a mound of rice into labyrinthian patterns, and then sweeping them away.