MUSIC NOTES : PACIFIC CHORALE PLANS A SEASON AT THE CENTER

This is the season that John Alexander’s Pacific Chorale, which has performed recently with 10 different orchestras throughout Southern California, plans to stay home.

“We have basically refused to do anything outside Orange County this season,” Alexander said. “We wanted to be centered at home--which has been our basic goal since the beginning--and we’re now reaching that goal.”

All 11 concerts that the 140-member chorale is scheduled to perform will be in the county--and all will be at the new Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

Only three will be produced by the organization, however.

Alexander’s concert on Saturday night--with music by Brahms, Vaughan Williams and Orff--will be sponsored by the Orange County Philharmonic Society.

Others, including concerts with the Pacific Symphony, scheduled for April 8 and 9, are also “fee concerts,” or paid for by other organizations.

“Basically, we have done this many concerts in the past, but producing them ourselves has become very expensive,” Alexander said. “The expenses in the Center are tremendous.

“But sold-out houses by no means pay for everything. I would estimate that ticket sales, with sold-out houses, would account for maybe one-third or a little less of the budget.”

Alexander estimates this year’s budget at $350,000.

“This is an expensive year. Everyone in Orange County would tell you that.”

Scheduled on Saturday night’s program are Vaughan Williams’ “Serenade to Music,” Brahms’ “Nanie” and “Academic Festival Overture” and Orff’s “Carmina Burana.”

Alexander will conduct the chorale and the Pacific Symphony. Soloists will include soprano Delcina Stevenson, contralto Janet Smith, tenor Philip Creech and baritone John Matthews.

The chorale’s own season will begin Dec. 5 with a Christmas program including Vaughan Williams’ “Nowell” and Magnificat, Biebl’s “Ava Maria,” Linda Wells’ Gloria, Bennett’s “Many Moods of Christmas” and several choruses from oratorios and cantatas by Bach.

A premiere of Alexander’s own Magnificat, originally scheduled for the Christmas program, will have to be postponed, the composer said. His schedule was wildly derailed a week before last year’s Christmas concert when a fire totally destroyed his home in the Hollywood Hills. He has only just moved into a house rebuilt on the site.

“I hope we can reschedule the work for the spring,” Alexander said.

The season will continue:

--March 14: Rachmaninoff’s “Vespers”; Stravinsky’s “Les Noces” and “Symphony of Psalms.”

--May 9: Parry’s “I Was Glad When They Said Unto Me”; Walton’s Te Deum; Elgar’s “Coronation Ode” and four choruses by Handel.