Chorale

Concordia University's music department is holding auditions this week for the 1996-97 Concordia Lutheran Chorale. The auditions will be Thursday and Friday by appointment only, followed by a general audition from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday open to all students. Candidates may arrange appointments by calling the college's music administrative assistant at (714) 854-8002, Ext. 525. Auditions will be in Room 105 at the Concordia University Center, 1530 Concordia West, Irvine.

William Hall will lead the Master Chorale of Orange County in the premiere of "Canticles and Christmas Dances: A Celebration in Three Movements" by Keith Clark Dec. 10 at 8 p.m. at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. Clark is the founding music director of the Pacific Symphony and was its music director from 1979 until 1989.

The Orange County Master Chorale has received a $50,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation. The grant, which extends over three years, will provide the group with money to develop a professional management staff. "With this funding as a significant beginning, we will be able to embark on a new era of professional business management and free our musicians to focus on more ambitious heights for all our audiences," said Maurice Allard, music director of the 115-member chorale.

The Pacific Chorale celebrated its silver anniversary on Sunday by throwing a party for supporters of the arts in Orange County. About 200 guests attended the 25th Anniversary Awards Dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach. The $150-per-person black tie gala netted a welcome anniversary present for the chorale: $15,000 in proceeds.

In this county of late-blooming arts organizations, the Orange County Master Chorale is, relatively speaking, an old-timer. OK, there are some truly venerable cultural institutions in Orange County, particularly the Laguna Beach Museum of Art and Laguna Moulton Playhouse, both dating back to at least the early 1920s.

Members of the Master Chorale of Orange County spread holiday cheer Sunday at their "Echoes of Christmas" concert and post-performance party. About 130 guests turned up at the Westin South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa to give a champagne toast to chorale members who sang Christmas classics at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

The Pacific Chorale has announced a three-concert 1991-92 season at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. Music director John Alexander will conduct programs at 8 p.m. * Oct. 26: Haydn's "Mass in Time of War," Lukas Foss' De Profundis, Dvorak's "Heirs of the White Mountain." * Dec. 14: Mack Wilberg's "Tres Cantus Laudendi," settings of the Ave Maria by Franz Biebl and Gustav Holst, Ariel Ramirez's "Gloria Dios," seasonal carols for choir and brass.

The Los Angeles Master Chorale has canceled the remaining concerts in its first outreach series at the Japan America Theatre in Los Angeles and at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach. "It was an experimental program . . . and we were disappointed with audience response in both places," Robert Willoughby Jones, executive director of the chorale, said Thursday. "We were having audiences of about 300 in both places, and economically that was really not enough to sustain the series."

In a blur of joyfully sung alleluias and spoken thanks, the Los Angeles Master Chorale bade farewell to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at a gala celebration that had music lovers looking back on 39 seasons even as they looked forward to the group's move into the Walt Disney Concert Hall.