The San Francisco Girls Chorus has canceled its trip to Scotland, and its leaders are citing President Donald Trump's stalled travel ban as one of the reasons.
The board of the Grammy-winning choral group said uncertain travel restrictions caused it to turn down the choir's invitation to an international music festival overseas.
Executive Director Andrew Bradford said the board assessed the entire situation and concluded that safety concerns made the trip impossible for the 40 or so girls, ages 12-18.
"From our perspective, we have to look out for every single member of our organization, regardless of what their status may be as a citizen or green card holder or whatever," Bradford said. "And we saw some of the challenges some other artists and arts organizations were having around the country with international travel, so they deemed it would be best for us not to go."
The choir's touring group, called Chorissima, is scheduled to perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., next week.
There have been protests at airports across the country where travelers, some of them U.S. citizens, have been detained.
One parent of a chorus member sent an email to the San Francisco Chronicle complaining about the board’s decision, saying the group is "pretty darned white and Asian and wealthy, and I can’t imagine there are any undocumented girls in there."
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Bradford said that description of white and Asain and wealthy doesn’t actually fit.
"You can look at a picture from our brochure to see that’s not the case," he said. "We have a very ethincally diverse group, and on top of that, I think approximately a quarter of the singers of that particular group are on scholarship or some kind of financial aid."
The group has a recording session slated for August.
