In today’s AGMAzine Spotlight, San Francisco Area Chorister Troy Turriate reflects on the role music has played across generations and how that inheritance shaped his path. He shares how the stability and security provided by AGMA enabled him to pick up the mantle his father had once been forced to set aside.
Read more about Troy’s journey on page 21 of the Winter 2025 issue of AGMAzine.
Honoring My Father in Solidarity and Song
By Troy Turriate, Chorister
My father, Carlos, was born in Peru, where his natural gift for singing once opened unlikely doors, like the opportunity to attend private school. But in the end, the weight of tradition and the expectations of a conservative Latin household pushed him away from pursuing music as anything more than a private joy. As my brother and I grew up in Florida and developed our own interests in music, my parents went with a different approach. They encouraged us, drove us to rehearsals, allowing us to form teenage rock bands — turning music into a shared family language.
I carried my generational musical inheritance into college, studying vocal performance, but stepped into the tech world after graduation, seeking the stability I feared a music career couldn’t offer. Now, in my early forties, as a professional musician and AGMA member, I feel that I am completing a circle for my father, and probably generations before him.
I owe my return to music and my father’s dream to the security and solidarity that being a part of AGMA provides. As a union member, I hold the ability to build a life as an artist with support, protections, and a collective voice behind me. When I joined AGMA, it was during a time when collective action at the San Francisco Symphony was underway. I had been singing with the Symphony as a volunteer for a few seasons, and suddenly I found myself on the picket line. At first, I was hesitant to speak up, but the deeper I got into it, the clearer it became: as musicians, we are the best advocates for ourselves and our well-being; collective action is how we survive and secure a future.
Labor unions, like AGMA, allow musicians to build lives doing what we love with dignity. I think about artists I know who are raising families in San Francisco, one of the country’s most expensive cities, and they can do that thanks, in part, to a union contract. Tenured singers who have spent decades performing can take a step back when they choose to, because they’ve had stability and agency in their careers. That’s something you can’t just take for granted.
When I look back on my journey from my father’s unrealized path, to the way music remained a thread through my lineage, to where I am today with the very practical solidarity of union membership, I come back to this:
I sing because my father was denied.
I sing because the music inside of me was patient and waited for me to return.
I sing because the tether didn’t break.
It found its way back to me, and AGMA empowers me.
And now, when I walk into rehearsal or onto a stage, or when I stand in solidarity with my colleagues for fair and safe working conditions, I feel rooted in my lineage and in a movement that links our collective fight as artists to the broader struggle of all workers seeking fairness and respect.
Dedication
This piece is dedicated to my father, Carlos, for his jovial character and unrealized vocal talent.
And to my mother, Claudia, whose lifelong love and passion for authenticity in music drove me to become a stronger artist.