Each week, Arts Orange County and Culture OC deliver you this look at the stories and events happening in our arts and cultural community.

Soka Peace Festival

Every year, Aliso Viejo's Soka University marks the anniversary of its founding with this outdoor family fair filled with live music and other entertainment MORE

A Former Percussionist Sings the Praises of Pacific Chorale

Rhett M. Del Campo, the new president and CEO of Pacific Chorale, was a professional musician for many years. But he never sang in a choir – or anywhere else.

In 2014 Del Campo landed his first administrative job in the choral field when he became executive director of Seraphic Fire, a Grammy-nominated professional vocal ensemble based in Miami.

“The position with Seraphic Fire came through my work as a percussionist when I was a fellow at New World Symphony in 2006,” Del Campo said. “My name came up because I had played with the vocal ensemble.” The job required getting up to speed quickly. “I didn’t come from the choral world, so I studied choral ensembles around the country.”

Víkingur Ólafsson's Extraordinary Goldberg Year

Most concert pianists in the midst of their careers follow a familiar path: performing the warhorse concertos with major orchestras, punctuated by solo recitals heavy on Classical and Romantic masterworks with Lisztian bravura.

Not Víkingur Ólafsson. The 40-year-old Icelandic pianist has staked out a rarified corner in the realm of virtuoso pianism: the intellectual’s musician. In his almost two-decade career, Ólafsson has followed his own distinctive muse, debuting demanding piano concertos by Icelandic composers, recording obscure as well as popular works, collaborating with Icelandic pop princess Björk, and championing the music of American composers John Adams and Philip Glass.

Shiyeon Sung Leads Pacific Symphony in Impressive Performance of Tchaikovsky

REVIEW: The Korean conductor, the first woman to try out for the orchestra’s music directorship, exhibits authority and intelligence.

Each week, we recommend a variety of events and experiences from the listings at SparkOC.com, our free website for Orange County's arts and cultural community.

Viet Book Fest 2024

This free event in Santa Ana, presented by the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA,) celebrates the many ways literature serves as a bridge between cultures at every age, with panels, author signings, and a special book market MORE

Art Therapy Festival

From Artist Safespaces, their first day-long celebration of the mental health benefits of art-making, with live mural paintings, spoken word performance, and other workshops, at the Costa Mesa IKEA MORE

Mary Blair’s Wonderland: Imagining Disney’s Alice

This ongoing free exhibition at the Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University celebrates the iconic color and style of the illustrator whose concept art brought Disney's animated classic "Alice in Wonderland" to life MORE

California Happening

A unique multimedia celebration in Laguna Beach of the legendary live music festivals which unfolded in the Golden State at the height of the counterculture movement from 1968-71 MORE