Little-Folks Singers Moving Up to the Big Time : Children’s music: Greg & Steve, after years of playing school auditoriums, are now performing at larger halls such as the Bren Events Center, where they’ll appear Sunday.

They’ve sold more than two million albums. Their songs have been translated into seven languages, and been sung on the White House steps and on the Great Wall of China. In 1989, they played Carnegie Hall.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s put our hands together for . . . Greg & Steve!

Greg and who?

Greg Scelsa and Steve Millang, both former Orange County residents, may be one of children’s music’s best-kept secrets. (Even their publicist said they are “kind of on the verge of being well known.”) But although their names may not be heard much around the office water cooler, they--or at least their tunes--are probably very familiar to your kids.

Since they teamed up professionally in the mid-1970s, the two have played before what they estimate as more than 1.5 million people. Through their recordings, teacher workshops and in-school concerts, their music, for ages 2 to 9, has been integrated into private- and public-school curricula nationwide and also in educational centers in Japan and Canada.

But recently, they’ve been playing larger digs, performing more frequently in large-capacity public halls instead of school auditoriums. That’s the case Sunday, when after years of performing for Southland school districts, the two will present their first public concert in Orange County at the 5,000-seat Bren Events Center in Irvine.

In the 10 albums and two videos they’ve released so far--more are on the way in 1993--Greg and Steve offer a friendly mix of folk songs and original tunes in arrangements that range from early rock ‘n’ roll to calypso to mild-mannered blues. They’re hipper than, say Burl Ives (who isn’t?), yet accessible to the most timid preschooler.

Scelsa and Millang, both 45, met and formed a rock band in the late 1960s after graduating from Mater Dei and Costa Mesa high schools, respectively. They and their families still live near each other in the Antelope Valley. Onstage, that familiarity translates into a joking, almost childlike camaraderie that, on their “Greg & Steve Live!” concert video, seems to draw young children like the smell of popcorn.

“Really, we both have a little kid in us,” explained Scelsa, laughing. “So it’s easy for us to try to reach (the audience) at whatever level they are.”

“Our whole thing is to really bring the kids into the show and have them participate,” Millang added. “We try to stimulate their imaginations. We try to let them come up with the ideas, and we’re the facilitators.”

Scelsa and Millang got their start performing for children by creating musical programs for special-education classes in the Los Angeles Unified School District. (“We basically ended up as the Pied Pipers of special ed,” Scelsa said.) Teaching is still a part of their focus, and their musical curriculum includes topics such as money (“Piggy Bank”), the alphabet (“ABC Rock”), environmental awareness (“We’ve Got the Whole World in Our Hands”) and racial harmony (“The World Is a Rainbow”).

But there is no quiet sitting in Millang and Scelsa’s classroom. The singers encourage children--and adults who are so inclined--to sing, dance and clap along or, on tunes such as “Simon Says” and “Scat Like That,” to take the initiative and create nonsensical sounds and moves of their own.

“We’ve always had an educational direction, but that doesn’t just mean numbers and the alphabet,” Millang said. “It means stimulating the imagination, helping kids to think and feel good about themselves and feel open about expressing their ideas.”

Greg & Steve perform Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Bren Events Center, Bridge and Mesa Roads, UC Irvine. $7.50. Parking: $2. (Because of construction in the area, center officials recommend that concert-goers use the parking structure at Campus and Bridge Roads and walk to the arena.) (714) 856-5000 or (714) 740-2000 (Ticketmaster).