MUSIC/DANCE : ’12 Days’ Strives for Balance--and Fun

Having trouble coming up with the perfect Christmas present for Uncle Harry or Aunt Sally, not to mention the kids, your significant other, neighbors and workstation colleagues? Imagine trying to program the perfect holiday concert--one show to satisfy the varied tastes of all those people.

“It’s always the most difficult program to put together,” says Master Chorale director William Hall, “simply because audiences need to hear music that is familiar and immediately accessible, and you also need to offer choral aficionados and obviously the singers something that is going to give them lasting significance.”

So Hall tries “to balance literature for different instruments and literature that the audience can immediately get into and sing.”

The results will be on view when the Master Chorale of Orange County sings “An International Christmas” program on Monday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Luckily, as Hall points out, the concert occurs 12 days before Christmas, and that, at least, gives him a theme.

“Ronald Colvard, one of our arrangers and basses, has made a very special arrangement of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas,’ which includes the chorale, the orchestra and audience members in the first, second and third tiers.

“We will have conductors out in the hall, conducting the various sections of the hall itself in the answers to the ’12 Days.’ It’s a lot of fun.”

The more serious works on the program will include Daniel Pinkham’s “Gloria in Excelsis,” John Rutter’s “Gloria,” Benjamin Britten’s “A Hymn to the Virgin,” and works drawn from the 16th Century and later.

There will also be two carol sing-alongs for the audience.

“We will have the texts printed,” Hall says. “That’s so important.”

Hall also has arranged several traditional carols, including “Good Christian Men Rejoice.”

“I wrote three different tunes for that,” he says. “It’s not a round, but sort of canonic, sort of a fight between the men and women singing different tunes. There is the carol tune; the other two are original tunes. But the text is the same.

“The nice thing about the concert is that at least half the program will be a cappella. So the audience will get to hear the true sound of this ensemble.”

* What: William Hall conducts the Master Chorale of Orange County in an “International Christmas” program.

* When: Monday, Dec. 13, at 7:30 p.m.

* Where: The Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.

* Whereabouts: San Diego (405) Freeway to Bristol Street exit north, then turn right on Town Center Drive.

* Wherewithal: $15 to $40.

* Where to call: (714) 556-6262.

MORE MUSIC/DANCE:

American Ballet Theatre’s new production of the “Nutcracker,” choreographed by company artistic director Kevin McKenzie, continues (with varying casts) through Sunday, Dec. 11, at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. (714) 556-2787.

Pablo Rodarte and Dance Espana will present “Navidad Flamenca,” a dance drama about the Nativity as interpreted through Flamenco and Middle Eastern influences, on Sunday, Dec. 12, at 2:30 p.m. in the Robert B. Moore at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. (714) 432-5880.