You can only practice or perform so much at SFCM: You also have to live your life—and that's where Sydnee Turrentine-Johnson comes in.

SFCM's Manager of International Student Services and Community Belonging, Turrentine-Johnson's not only the frontline for questions from SFCM's diverse international community of students, but an engaged and active organizer (and participant) of non-musical student life at the Conservatory.

Sydnee Turrentine-Johnson in San Francisco Opera's 'Un Ballo in Maschera.' (Credit: Cory Weaver)

Texas native Turrentine-Johnson remembers, "When I was about to graduate, I thought, 'What does one do after they finish undergrad?' Some people take a year off, or do more school. I thought, 'I should probably do more school.' So I went on Google and I typed in 'music schools by the water,' and SFCM was the first one to pop up. I clicked on it, and the first video I saw was a video of Catherine Cook teaching a student. I watched it, and to this day that was my deciding factor: I applied after the video was over."

A therapy dog visit to SFCM.

When the listing for her current job came up, she explains, "It spoke to me as a person. I'm really big on belonging and community. I'm a very social person: I love giving back and doing things for other people. Here, I've felt blessed and empowered to create an environment that builds on that."

SFCM's 2025 holiday party.

A make-your-own Valentine's Day card station at SFCM.

A self-described "holiday simp," Turrentine-Johnson focuses on calendar moments in that vein, but also draws on her recent memories of being a student at SFCM. She acknowledges that it's hard to get lost in the day-to-day churn of practice rooms and rehearsals, meaning "you kind of forget sometimes that you're a human—and still a kid! It's really important to attend to our human necessities." To that end, everything from free massages to therapy dog visits to holiday parties is in play at SFCM.

SFCM has a variety of student clubs focused less on activities like running or basketball and more on diasporic identity, like Korean Club and the South Asian Affinity Group (a conscious pun on saag). "Students come from different states or different countries and don't have any family here,  so the sense of community that we build here is important because we want each student to feel supported and strong: They are not alone, they can get through this."

To that end, Turrentine-Johnson also keeps her office door open unless she's actively in a meeting. "I have a table in here with snacks and coloring pencils. You don't even have to talk to me, you can just come and sit with me, or talk to me as a friend. I hate to see anybody here feel alone; I don't want that to be the reason they feel like they're failing."

Because SFCM's campus is split between its 50 Oak Street and 200 Van Ness Avenue locations, Turrentine-Johnson says creating the community feeling of a conventional college has to be more intentional. "That extends to faculty and staff, too," she adds. "That was part of the reason, for example, why I organized the campus trick-or-treat day for Halloween this past fall. We really encourage and reward musical collaboration across departments here, and I want to extend that to the non-musical parts of the Conservatory as well."

Turrentine-Johnson wants students to know how much San Francisco has to offer—and SFCM offers transportation benefits to students to aid with this—but says her first priority is making sure students feel safe in their new home.

"That's the first thing. When someone feels safe, they feel they can talk to you, and then we can start building from there. Once that happens, the sky's the limit on how far they can go, you know?"

Learn more about student life at SFCM.