Starry Nights

We’ll build it up,

Not tear it down,

We’re gonna change

The world around.

--From Roger Emerson’s “A Better You . . . a Better Me!,” part of the Paul McNeff KidSingers’ repertoire

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Sporting spangly vests and Pepsodent grins, 36 Orange County grade-schoolers are out to improve their world, one voice at a time.

Born of an outreach program of the Fullerton-based Paul McNeff Singers, the new Paul McNeff KidSingers will make their formal debut Saturday night in a holiday concert at Santa Ana’s First Presbyterian Church.

Because it’s the holidays and all, you can expect plenty of tunes about Santa and reindeer and such from these 8- to 12-year-olds. Still, between the seasonal chestnuts, you’ll also hear the kids sing about taking responsibility, working together and trying to understand and appreciate your neighbor--themes the group’s founder says are fundamental to its mission.

“Music is so powerful in building character in kids and in adults,” said McNeff, a choral director who founded the nonprofit Paul McNeff Singers in 1994. “Through the music, they learn to self-express, to emote and to feel what they’re singing. And because a choir does things in a communal way, they learn to work with each other.”

Many of the KidSingers found out about the two fledgling McNeff groups at school concerts presented last year by the choir’s educational outreach ensemble in the Santa Ana Unified School District, McNeff said. About 80 potential singers auditioned in July.

Many who made the final cut are from lower-income families and receive at least partial scholarships supported by city social services money and private donors (the public can sponsor a KidSinger’s tuition of $200 a year, which covers musical instruction and costumes).

McNeff said the children who made the final cut were chosen for their musical skills and drive, not their income level.

“These kids are very self-motivated,” he said. “The parents aren’t dragging them here; the kids want to be here.” McNeff pointed out that several children opted to drop their soccer leagues to attend the KidSingers weekly meetings with director Christy Hewko at Santa Ana’s Heninger Elementary School.

The KidSingers dipped their collective toes into performing in public last week in a brief appearance at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda. After performing with the adult choral group in Saturday’s holiday concert--the adult group’s selections will include Paul Rutter’s “Gloria” along with contemporary holiday tunes--they’ll appear at the choir’s Concert for Peace on March 21 and a cabaret concert June 27, both in Santa Ana.

McNeff says the KidSingers have had invitations to perform at Disneyland and the Bowers Kidseum. He hopes to take both up on that soon and to launch a series of KidSingers shows in Orange County’s low-income-area elementary schools.

McNeff is enthusiastic about what he hopes these young singers will gain from his program.

“We have one little girl who was . . . very shy; she didn’t speak much English at all,” he said. “She’s actually had a transformation. Her teacher says her English has improved drastically, and it’s helping her to assimilate. It’s just an unbelievable joy to see this.”

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‘Tis the season in which virtually every county dance troupe from Ballet Pacifica to your local strip mall dance school hauls out its production of “The Nutcracker.” It’s tradition, and who wants to mess with tradition, especially one that’s a winner at the box office?

Stela Viorica, for one. The Romanian artistic director of Costa Mesa’s Ballet Montmartre has turned her back on legions of toy soldiers and sugarplum fairies to present another well-known Christmas story in an innovative way.

Working with Costa Mesa composer George Martinovich, Viorica has created a ballet version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” one she thinks will help viewers feel the message of the story in a new way. The two-hour piece is recommended for ages 5 to adult and will be presented tonight at Orange Coast College and Dec. 20-21 at Newport Harbor High School.

Viorica, a former dancer with the National Ballet of Romania who took over as Montmartre’s artistic director in 1990, said that she knows of no other ballet version of “A Christmas Carol” on the West Coast. She said she had never read the story until recently.

“It reminds people, not only at Christmastime but all the time, to think of your life and what you give to other people,” Viorica observed.

“I was very impressed that Dickens was so concerned with the welfare of children,” she continued. “Of course, that is our concern today too, so that message is very contemporary.”

On Tuesday “A Christmas Carol” was presented free for 3,000 Santa Ana school kids in performances at Santa Ana High School as part of the troupe’s outreach efforts.

Viorica shifted Dickens’ gritty London setting heavenward.

“Scrooge was a stingy, stingy man,” she said, “but he was given a chance to be saved.

“This is the first thing, to me,” she continued, “so I made a scene that doesn’t exist in the [Dickens] story. The first thing that happens in the show [is that] we see how the messengers, the three spirits, were sent by divine intervention.”

Audience members can decide what that divine being is. The point, said Viorica, is that viewers understand the messengers’ purpose, which is to “save Scrooge’s soul” and awaken his dormant heart.

Sixty-five dancers age 8 to 70-something tell the story through a blend of classical and contemporary dance. Martinovich’s score, she said, moves freely from modern to classical to jazzy. Her costumes keep step, from “strict Victorian” to a surrealistic look for the spirits that she says is similar to that used by Cirque du Soleil, the Canadian troupe.

She’s also added a character that is even more villainous than Scrooge: Greed.

“Scrooge’s greed is actually a role,” she explained. “That way I can make people understand the power that it has over him.”

Still, she said parents of young children needn’t fret about overemphatic spirits.

“I would say my ghosts are lovely compared to what the children see on the television.”

BE THERE

* The Paul McNeff KidSingers perform with the Paul McNeff Singers in a holiday concert Saturday at the First Presbyterian Church, 600 N. Main St., Santa Ana. 7 p.m. $5-$10. Tickets available at the door. (714) 525-7464.

* Ballet Montmarte’s “A Christmas Carol,” tonight at Orange Coast College’s Robert B. Moore Theatre, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. 7:30 p.m. Also 7 p.m. Dec. 20 and 2 p.m. Dec. 21 at Newport Harbor High School auditorium, 600 Irvine Ave., Newport Beach. Tickets for all performances: $10 for seniors 55 and up and children 12 and under; $12.50 general admission. (714) 646-7688.