In the pantheon of The Simpsons, there’s a classic episode called “Bart Sells His Soul” that begins with the titular eight-year-old getting everyone in his church to unknowingly sing a song by heavy metal band Iron Maiden as their morning hymnal. The stunt goes poorly for Bart, but his prank nonetheless proves a noble point: churches and other sacred spaces offer an amazing opportunity to hear music of all stripes in a singular, transfixing setting.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, there are a number of such places currently programming secular music events. The options include both deconsecrated churches as well as a few active ministries, with their common thread being a desire to welcome audiences of all faiths to hear songs, compositions, spoken word, and more in places that are both acoustically sublime and intrinsically demanding of attention and reverence. Naturally, such efforts take a diverse array of forms.

Saint Joseph's, a historic former church is now a multi-use community high-end arts space

Saint Joseph’s church in San Francisco was built in 1906 and operated until it was damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. Following 30 years of decay, visionary designer Ken Fulk remodeled the space and opened Saint Joseph’s Arts Foundation in 2018. Since 2024, Martin Strickland has run the programming, which he notes includes everything from mahjong nights to concerts to a series called Poolside Poets they host with local nonprofit Decentered Arts.

Reflecting on the experience of taking in a performance at Saint Joseph’s today, Strickland pointed to the guiding values that have steered Fulk’s vision from the get-go.

“When Fulk was rethinking what this building could be, at the heart of the Art Society was a desire to welcome people into this awe-inspiring, beautiful place,” he said. “While there's certainly not a religious component to our programming, I do feel the space lends itself to awe whenever people come in. It makes them feel like they are someplace unique, which in turn makes them come out of their shell a little bit.”

While Saint Joseph’s Art Society operates out of a deconsecrated church, San Francisco’s Noe Music operates in tandem with the Presbyterian Noe Valley Church. Fittingly, the program was initially birthed via a pianist parishioner with a desire to gather Bay Area chamber musicians together to perform for the community. Next year, Noe Music will celebrate its 35th anniversary.

Noe Valley Presbyterian Church is home to Noe Music's extensive concert program

That’s the legacy Meena Bhasin and her husband, Owen Dalby, inherited when they took over as Noe Music’s artistic directors nearly a decade ago.

“It truly has some of the best acoustics in the city,” Bhasin shared. “We've heard that from many people. My husband and I are both professional classical musicians — violin and viola — and our own experiences performing there have been incredible too.”

With an intimate 200-person capacity, the space is also home to a Steinway concert grand piano that both Noe Music and Noe Church incorporate into their respective programming. Impressively, the site is also home to a Ruth Asawa sculpture, adding to its allure as a place of both faith and arts.

The unique, symbiotic relationship between Noe Music and Noe Church reflects the shared importance of music in the work both sides respectively do. It was a similar respect from across the pew that first gave birth to secular music performances at one of San Francisco’s most storied religious landmarks: Grace Cathedral.

In that case, according to Grace Cathedral’s Director of Events and Cultural Programs Rebecca Nestle, the instigating spark was Very Reverend C. Julian Bartlett, a former dean at Grace in the 1960s with an affinity for a type of music the choir couldn’t sing.

“He would go down to North Beach and listen to jazz,” Nestle said. “That’s where he met Duke Ellington. He asked him to perform at Grace, and [in 1965] Duke Ellington created his ‘First Sacred Concert’ there.” It’s a tradition that’s continued in various forms over the intervening decades.

In recent years, Bay Area music promoter Noise Pop has partnered with Grace Cathedral to bring rock artist St. Vincent and Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard to perform special concerts at the hallowed space. Grace also invites local talents to participate in an annual artist-in-residence program.

Asked to pinpoint what makes hearing live music at Grace Cathedral so special, Nestle acknowledged that the answer is a blend of sound, experience, and solace.

“Why would someone play a concert in a space with extreme cathedral acoustics where you have a reverb that ranges from 7 to 12 seconds?” she mused. “Why would you do that to St. Vincent? It's because you’re in a sacred space. When I hear music in the cathedral, it makes me feel something that I don't think I would necessarily feel in a concert hall. And that goes for the artists too.”

Old First Church, Sacramento Street, hosts 40 concerts a year

Pastors with a penchant for music appear to be a common impetus for inspiring the Bay Area’s active deconsecrated churches to begin their second acts. In the case of Polk Gulch’s Old First Church, what started as a pet project in 1970 quickly blossomed into a powerhouse concert series by the following decade.

According to Matt Wolka, current director of Old First’s music programming, the non-profit organization presently hosts 40 concerts a year while predominantly focusing on uplifting local, emerging artists — specifically work from women and BIPOC composers. Asked to distil what makes seeing a show at Old First so memorable, he joined his peers in preaching the pristine nature of his venue’s acoustic.

“Number one is the acoustic and physical beauty of the space,” Wolka said. “Singers, choirs and string ensembles revel in the way the sound lingers and blends, something that can't be replicated in a ‘dry’ room.” Like Noe Music, Old First is also home to a treasured centerpiece in the form of a Hamburg Steinway concert grand piano. “Our concerts frequently center the piano, which is maintained in top condition by our technician, David Love,” Wolka added, “We also occasionally bring in additional pianos — we once had four concert grands on the stage for a performance of works by Julius Eastman!”

You won’t see a stage packed with pianos at the Church of 8 Wheels in San Francisco’s Fillmore District, but it at least deserves an honorable mention given it houses a community skating rink inside a 129-year-old former church. Likewise, The Chapel in SF’s Mission District is a former mortuary that makes the most of unique acoustics. And, of course, there’s the St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church.

Since 1969, an African Orthodox church devoted to the work and teachings of jazz giant John Coltrane has occupied several homes across San Francisco. Parishioners now meet at Fort Mason’s Magic Theater, where they continue to preach the power of music to carry musical truths.

San Francisco is, of course, but one many of places in the Bay Area where you’ll find deconsecrated churches enjoying renewed life as live event spaces.

Head across the bridge to Tiburon in Marin County and you’ll find a former mission church known as Old St. Hilary's Landmark. Blessed with beautiful views from its perch on the Tiburon Hills, St. Hilary’s occasionally hosts concerts of various genres in collaboration with the Belvedere-Tiburon Landmarks Society. In the East Bay, there’s Spire: a former Apostolic Christian church that’s recently reemerged as a community arts space.

Even if the clergy of bygone eras would have revolted over Gershwin, let alone contemporary rock, being played in their churches, they would have been hard-pressed to deny how good it would have sounded from the pews. As the modern world continues to push ever forward, it’s beautiful to know that old traditions can still birth new life. In essence, all it takes is a willingness to sit and listen — not a bad price to pay for the rich rewards of hearing beautiful sound in a sacred space.

Main image: Devine Hardy at Grace Cathedral. Photo by Kyle Alder