Hearing Voices

Put another candle on the cake for the Pacific Chorale. It opens its 30th anniversary season Sunday with a program of great choruses at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

“In planning the program, I took the choral literature we have been asked to do the most,” music director John Alexander said. “This is not what I would normally do at all. I love doing whole works, not taking pieces and stringing them together. But on this occasion, it’s right because we’re celebrating what the chorale has done over the years.”

Formed in 1968 by Maurice Allard, the Pacific began as the Irvine Community Chorus under the aegis of the University of California Extension, Irvine. A year later, it cut loose from the university and was renamed the Irvine Master Chorale.

Allard left in 1970 to take over the rival Master Chorale of Orange County, which he led until his resignation in 1987. Alexander, then a 27-year-old professor at Cal State Fullerton, became director in 1971. A decade later, the chorus changed names again, becoming the Pacific Chorale.

The chorale has worked over the years with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Pierre Boulez, Michael Tilson Thomas, among a host of others, and with orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, the London Symphony and, of course, the home team--the Pacific Symphony led by Carl St.Clair.

“In 30 years, I think that’s very impressive for an independent chorus in Orange County,” Alexander said. “We have a repertory of over 500 compositions that we’ve presented in 30 years. In Orange County, we’ve premiered over 100 works, according to our records.”

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Another new one will be Heitor Villa-Lobos’ “Cho^ro No. 10,” which the Pacific is preparing for its three-week South American tour beginning July 20.

“I can’t do a program of just standard repertory,” Alexander said. “I’ve always tried to bring out works that are not usually done in our series.

Cho^ro, pronounced SHO-ro, is a popular form of Brazilian music closely related to classical.

“There are instrumental ensembles that only do cho^ro music,” Alexander said. “Villa-Lobos took the concept and wrote 14 different cho^ros. This is the only one he wrote for chorus and orchestra.”

The chorus is used as an extension of the orchestra, very much in the manner of Ravel or Debussy. But it has really interesting things to do.

“They have a lot of sounds that come from the Indian language,” Alexander said. “They made what look like nonsense syllables, but words could be made of them. Some elements of the music are like American jazz, but it’s not influenced by jazz but by African music as filtered through Brazil. The piece is going to end the first half of the concert with a breath of fresh air.”

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* John Alexander will lead the Pacific Chorale on Sunday in music by Mozart, Brahms, Berlioz and other composers at 7:30 p.m. at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. $16 to $47. (714) 556-2787.