MUSIC/DANCE : Pacific Chorale Rejoices in Glorious Tradition

There are two choices facing a conductor putting together a Christmas program, according to Pacific Chorale music director John Alexander.

“You can take traditional carols and go into the Bing Crosby mode, the lighter area, or do what in my opinion is the most beautiful tradition of all: Go toward the English mode, meaning the mode of the boys choirs in England and the beautiful choral concerts you hear in the cathedrals.”

Alexander and the chorale will be taking the English mode in a holiday program on Sunday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

It’s not that he has anything against Crosby, mind you.

“I don’t say I don’t enjoy it or play it for my friends at a Christmas party,” Alexander said. “But we hear the Bing Crosby mode all around us, all the way from Thanksgiving to Christmas, in every store we go into to shop. It’s on the radio. You continually get a Bing Crosby mode of Christmas.

“But my goal for a Pacific Chorale concert is to have people leave the program feeling good about the season, not in a commercial way, but in a real way.”

So Alexander has picked excerpts from large-scale works such as Mendelssohn’s oratorio, “Christus.”

“He wanted to write a whole oratorio on the life of Christ,” said Alexander, “but he only finished the first part of it, the Christmas portion, which has wonderful music.”

Other pieces include Gerald Finzi’s “In Terra Pax” (“Peace on Earth”), which “despite the Latin title, is actually in English.

“The poetry is by Robert Bridges,” Alexander said. “It describes the writer of the poem on top of a mountainside, looking down, listening to church bells as people go to service.” Soprano Nora O’Sullivan and baritone Ralph Cato will sing the solo parts in the piece.

Continuing Alexander’s stated commitment to doing works by living American composers, the chorale will sing Conrad Susa’s “A Christmas Garland.”

Alexander described it as “an original setting using very familiar carols everyone knows, but in an original way, not the typical carol suite we’re used to hearing. There is a lot of original material combined with the carols. This will be a Southern California premiere.”

The men of the chorale will also sing Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria, because “whenever I leave that piece off a Christmas program, the audience writes in in droves asking why I left it off,” Alexander explained.

And the audience will have opportunities “throughout the program,” the conductor promised, to sing along in traditional carols.

“Our goal is to pick the most beautiful carols of all time,” he said, “as well as to give the audience some material it’s never heard before that deals with the subject matter of Christmas.”

* What: John Alexander leads the Pacific Chorale in “A Glorious Celebration of Music.”

* When: Sunday, Dec. 19, 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 Avenue exit north, then go right on Town Center Drive.

* Wherewithal: $15 to $40.

* Where to call: (714) 252-1234.

MORE MUSIC/DANCE:

Paul Anthony McRae, music director of the Greensboro (N.C.) and Lake Forest (Ill.) symphonies, will lead the Pacific Symphony and Pacific Chorale in Handel’s “Messiah” on Saturday, Dec. 18, at 3:30 p.m. at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Soloists will include soprano Elisabeth Comeaux, mezzo-soprano Ellen Rabiner, tenor Seung Won Choi and baritone James Maddalena. (714) 740-2000.

Ballet Pacifica will dance a new production of the “Nutcracker” tonight, Dec. 16, at 7:30 and Friday, Dec. 17, through Dec. 23 at 3:30 and 7:30 p.m., at the Moulton Playhouse in Laguna. Choreography is by company artistic director Molly Lynch, with the “Waltz of the Flowers” choreographed by James Jones. (714) 642-9275.