Promote choral music in the San Diego area through cooperation, public awareness, and performance.

Our Mission


The Choral Consortium of San Diego is a service organization composed of choruses and individuals who support the choral art from throughout San Diego County. Today we provide the following services:

  • Promotion of member choir concerts, auditions/open houses, and job postings through newsletters and social media

  • Comprehensive web calendar for all member choir performances

  • Member meetings including educational presentations and networking opportunities

  • Community-wide performances such as Beer Choir, World Singing Day, Summer Chorus, and the San Diego Sings! Festival, featuring 15-20 groups performing in a single day

  • Advocacy in support of the arts, especially choral music, in the San Diego/Tijuana region

What We Do

Our History

The Choral Consortium of San Diego was founded in 2010 by leaders of area choirs, in response to a need for better communication and coordination among the choirs, particularly in scheduling concerts on non-conflicting dates. Benefits of working together became clear very quickly, including the opportunity to share resources, promote each other’s concerts, and develop community-wide programs to highlight the many opportunities to sing in choirs. In 2014, the Choral Consortium of San Diego incorporated, formed a Board of Directors, and became a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization. Membership dues were instituted for choirs and later modified to include memberships for individuals, including music teachers and accompanists who can be listed as a resource for the choral community. The organization now has 90+ member choirs!

Our Values

  • We strive to nurture beneficial relationships within the community and increase access to the choral arts to develop and expand appreciation of choral music.

  • We strive to deliver more impactful programs at lower cost by combining the needs and resources of our members to achieve economies of scale.

  • We strive to produce programs that support choirs in achieving excellence in artistic and organizational performance.

  • Training in arts management is a vital component of our members’ development. We are committed to expanding and providing educational opportunities for our member choirs and singers.

  • We are committed to ensuring that all members as well as audiences and community supporters and partners feel valued, respected, appreciated, and included regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, education, disability, or socioeconomic status. We actively pursue offering services and events in support of creating equity, access, and inclusion throughout our membership community.

Our Programs

  • is a biennial all-day choral festival, featuring 15 diverse choirs from the San Diego/Tijuana region. As many as 1000 singers have participated, with even larger numbers in the audience. Participating choirs are given a time slot to showcase their vocal offerings, and then join forces into a massed choir, a highlight of the day.

  • is an annual opportunity for new and experienced singers to rehearse and perform with professional musicians without an extensive time commitment. Every year the CCSD Summer Chorus features a different theme, choral director, and location. All singers are welcome and there is different group every year. Each performance is the result of people from different backgrounds coming together and creating a beautiful concert after just a few rehearsals!

  • is the choir that sings while drinking beer! Informal, accessible, and welcoming, you don’t have to be an accomplished singer or even read music to enjoy Beer Choir. Just show up, grab a hymnal, and raise a glass and a song!

  • is the global sing-along for everyone. Each year on the 3rd Saturday in October, people all over the world gather in groups of all sizes to sing all kinds of songs to celebrate our common humanity. Everyone, from shower singers to celebrities, can sing. And that includes you. The Choral Consortium of San Diego hosts a local observance of this global event, each year in Balboa Park’s Spanish Village. Join the global choir!

  • CCSD strives to be a resource for collaboration and information- and skill-sharing within the choral community. Our website, monthly newsletter, and social media channels provide marketing of member choirs and their programs, including a centralized calendar of regional choral events, classified ads, and networking opportunities.

Our Team

Executive Director

Favorite Choral Piece: Olim/The Bells of Notre Dame - Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz

Krystle Hart

  • Krystle was the Managing Director of the award-winning JCompany Youth Theater at the Lawrence Family JCC/Garfield Theater in La Jolla. Her other professional experience includes corporate event planning, community organizing with the American Cancer Society, and work in events and donor development with Voices for Children, where she supported fundraising and advocacy efforts for youth in foster care.

    Krystle has a deep and longstanding connection to the choral community through her work with our member chorus Encore Vocal Ensemble. She served six years on the organization’s Board of Directors in leadership roles including Production Chair, Vice President, and President, and returned to serve again as President from 2024 through 2026.

    A collaborative and forward thinking leader, Krystle is dedicated to strengthening connections among singers and organizations while championing the role of choral music in the cultural life of the region.

Kevin Wright

  • He is passionate about supporting both new and existing initiatives that strengthen connections across the choral community. His experience has shown that engagement and investment go hand in hand, and that empowering individuals to contribute their unique talents fosters a more vibrant and energized organization. He is particularly committed to deepening relationships among community choirs, recognizing that these groups are often each other’s greatest supporters. Kevin looks forward to helping expand community events, enhance communication between organizations, and ensure that the collective impact of CCSD continues to be greater than the sum of its parts.

Board President

Sandra Dibble

Immediate Past President, Treasurer

Binational Engagement Committee

Favorite Choral Piece: Gabriel Faure's Cantique de Jean Racine

  • Over the years, she has built a broad network of contacts in the city’s classical music community and has had the pleasure of bringing together musicians from both sides of the border to perform together.

Aaron Humble

Board Secretary

  • During his tenure with Cantus, Aaron sang nearly 1000 concerts and recorded 10 albums with one of the nation’s premier vocal ensembles. Aaron has recently sung as a soloist and ensemble singer with the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Tucson’s Grammy-nominated True Concord Voices, and Orchestra, and The Grammy-Nominated South Dakota Chorale while also remaining active regionally and nationally as a soloist in recital and oratorio. An Assistant Professor of Music, Aaron was recently appointed to lead the vocal and choral area at California State University San Marcos.

    A graduate of Millikin University, Aaron holds the Doctor of Music degree in Vocal Performance and Literature from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. As Aaron directs his focus toward teaching, he continues to perform as a recital and concert singer as well as maintaining his work as a clinician in a variety of vocal and choral settings including his work as a cantor at St. Joseph Cathedral in San Diego. An avid gardener and home improvement devotee, Aaron and his husband Xu, make their home in New York and San Diego with their two cats, Chopstick and Toothpick.

Kathleen Hansen

  • and as a member of SingUnited (formerly Sweet Adelines) International Faculty. Kathleen holds degrees in music education and conducting from San Diego State University, and recently completed her Doctorate of Musical Arts at Boston University, studying trauma-informed practices in adult community choruses. A champion of accessible vocal education, she is the creator of Vocal Warmups with Kathleen, a vocal warm-up mobile app and YouTube channel. Her work reflects her belief in the transformative power of music making and group singing.

Program Committee

Daria Abreu Feraud

Binational Engagement Committee

  • That same year, she began teaching choral conducting and solfege at the Esteban Salas Conservatory. She also began directing the Sirenas Women’s Choir.

    In 2008, she graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte, under the tutelage of the Cuban composer and orchestra conductor Guido López Gavilán. In 2017, she earned her Master of Science Degree in orchestral conducting from the Universidad de las Artes in Havana.

    Among the orchestras she has conducted are: the Esteban Salas Conservatory Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Esteban Salas Camerata, and the Camagüey and Villa Clara Symphony Orchestras, the Oriente Symphony Orchestra, and the Baja California Symphony Orchestra. In 2013, she conducted the famous U.S. soprano Barbara Hendricks with the Oriente Symphony Orchestra.

    Since 2009, she has been a member of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. Until 2021, she served as a member of the Program for the Development of Choral Music in Cuba. Throughout her career, she has attended various courses and master classes with maestros such as Carl Högset, Javier Busto, Dante Andreo, María Felicia Pérez, Cristian Grases, Frank F. Eychaner, among others. With the Orfeón Santiago Choir, she has toured extensively both nationally and internationally, including Mexico, Spain, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and France.

    She has participated in several festivals such as: El Cervantino, Karu Koral, América Cantat, Corhabana, the “Les Voix Humaines” Festival, the Turrialba Choir Festival in Costa Rica, Coralifornia, Tlaxcala Canta, and the 2nd Edition of the International Festival of Women’s Choirs of Latin America (FICFE) held in Guadalajara.

    She has taught workshops in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Costa Rica, and at the América Cantat 8 International Festival held in the Bahamas in 2016. In 2025, she participated in the premiere at Carnegie Hall in New York City of the work Xantolo by composer Julio Morales.

    Since 2018, she has been the Artistic Director of Promotora de las Bellas Artes in Tijuana, Baja California, and Director of the Estorninos Selection Choir and the Meraki Women ‘s Choir.

Dzaya Castillo Jiménez

Binational Engagement Committee

  • In this year, she continues her work as director of the Coros Redes now as part of the State Music System of the Baja California Institute of Culture. She also directs the Wa-Kuatay Choir of the Rosarito State Arts Center and the Choir of the Tijuana Security Center of the Mexican Social Security Institute. In 2018, together with choral directors from the region, she created and directed the Coralifornia International Festival. A Song without Borders, which in 2023 already celebrated its fifth edition.

    She is the delegate of Baja California to the National Network of Choir Directors in Mexico. She has been assistant facilitator of doctors Andre de Quadros and Emilie Amrein in working with  the Empowering Song! Methodology in Migrant shelters in Tijuana, Baja California. From November 2010 to December 2013 she was the academic head of the Trainers of Trainers of  Ah, Que la Canción! Mexican Music in the Community of the RedeseArte Culture of Peace Program  in the cities: Ciudad Juárez, Nogales, Tapachula and San Luis Potosí. Collaborator in the publication  of the Activities Guide Ah, that song! Coordinated by Doctor Lucina Jiménez; which links the songs of the Mexican music songbook prepared by CONARTE with the thematic axes of the elementary  school curriculum; In addition to guiding classroom teachers in vocal work and song assembly, she teaches classes on the History of Mexican Music and singing for the bachelor’s degrees at the Musical Arts Center. 

    She belonged to the cast of the National Children’s Program “Alas y Raíces” of CONACULTA and for  11 years to the artistic cast of the “Música a la Escuela” program of the Secretary of Public Education  in Mexico City, where she has performed countless concerts for children and young people in México.  

Tomás Acosta

Binational Engagement Committee

  • He holds a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from Universidad Veracruzana and a Bachelor of Music in Piano from Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. He has also participated in choral and orchestral conducting master classes in Cuba, Argentina, Italy, Germany, and Romania, studying with internationally recognized conductors and educators.
    Acosta has founded and directed several choirs and artistic initiatives in Baja California and is co-founder of the Festival Internacional Coralifornia. His work includes conducting, teaching, and collaborating on choral projects that bring together singers and audiences on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border.

Lola Watson

College Chorus Liaison

  • She is currently a staff singer with both the San Diego Master Chorale and San Diego Symphony Chorus.

    Read Lola’s Articles on Chorus Connection Blog