OCC Singers Rely on Neighbors

They still call themselves the Orange Coast Singers, even though they’ll be warbling in Tustin churches and at various other inland locales through April while their home base, the Robert B. Moore Theatre at Orange Coast College, is being renovated (to the tune of $1.6 million).

Saturday they will offer a Christmas program at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Tustin.

“Acoustically, singing in churches is much better than singing at Orange Coast College,” says Richard Raub, the Singers’ director. “But it’s also a drag lugging everything off campus. It’s a mixed blessing.”

The 31-voice group is “a community chorus in the broad sense,” Raub says. “But more than half the people have music degrees.” Several members joined the Singers as students at the college in the ‘70s. “Now they have families and jobs and so forth and are still doing this.

“The whole modus operandi is different from the larger Orange Coast (College) Chorale, in which I just had young students,” Raub added. “We can do much more challenging repertoire with the smaller group.”

Raub led both groups at the college until 1989, when the Chorale was taken over by Ted Reid, who was replaced early this year by Bruce Bales. Bales left in July to start a choral program at Golden West College in Huntington Beach; the Chorale is in abeyance as the college seeks a new director.

Raub says he isn’t interested in the job. Running both groups is best left to “somebody who is very young and still willing to beat up his body a lot,” he said. “I don’t feel I can.”

Sunday’s Christmas concert will be in three parts, Raub said, “music from the Old World, music from the New World (American pieces and American arrangements) and a little music from the church’s literature.” Altogether there will be 25 pieces, “but the program will go quickly,” Raub said, laughing. “A lot of the pieces are very short.”

* Richard Raub will lead the Orange Coast Singers in a Christmas program of carols and songs and works by Vaughan Williams and Poulenc, among other composers, Saturday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1221 Wass St., Tustin. Curtain: 8 p.m. Tickets: $10. (714) 432-5527.