Occidental Community Choir has been blending voices and forging friendships for over 47 years
There's still time to hear their annual midwinter concert this weekend in Tomales and Santa Rosa
The Occidental Community Choir (OCC) is completing its round of winter concerts this weekend, Dec. 12-14. They’re ending on a series of high notes that includes sold-out shows, renewals of generational community ties and affirmations of the power of friendship and song. This year marks the choir’s 47th year.
The theme of this year’s midwinter concert series is “Light in the Darkness,” and this year’s performances have reaffirmed the choir as a legendary community institution and an enduring source of light in changing times.
The choir always has stressed “community” as an equal or leading part to the singing, composing, humor and shared talents that continue to gain it a following among Sonoma County audiences.
“There’s just not quite another choir like us,” said musical director Gage Purdy. “It’s unique. We’re a choir-by-community. The amount of care and compassion is amazing as (all the members) make beautiful and fun music together. It’s a uniquely human effort where the members put the emotional and spiritual parts ahead of the music itself.”
This year’s full performances offer another “eclectic mix of locally composed music, classical and contemporary pieces, poetry and spoken word,” choir member Celia de Mello Lam told The Sebastopol Times this week. “Our members are from the northern California redwoods from Sebastopol, Graton, Forestville and not just Occidental.”
In the beginning
The legendary beginning of the Occidental Community Choir took place around a bonfire in downtown Occidental in 1978, when a small group of locals got inspired to expand their evening harmonies into a more formal setting. They soon began regular rehearsals, first in someone’s home and later at the Occidental Community Church. Its members were mostly new arrivals to western Sonoma County, a younger wave of Baby Boomers seeking new paths to community. Some of the original members of the choir were inhabitants of Occidental’s famed hippie communes such as Morningstar, Wheeler Ranch and others. At a time when an emerging American counterculture was searching for a new drumbeat, the new wave of longer-haired Occidental inhabitants settled on sharing some bonfire harmonies.
One of those original singers, Diane Masura recalled that “what made us linger in the cold that evening is what I think (still) lies at the heart of this choir — the love of lifting song together with others and making a joyful noise.”
The old and the new
Masura is still serving on the OCC Board of Directors. Her daughter Nadja is a second-generation member. Membership of the choir has remained very steady through five decades with a few original members still attending weekly rehearsals. While the average members’ age is above 60, younger members continue to join, including Purdy, the choir’s current musical director, and his wife, Crystal McDougall-Purdy, who serves as artistic director.
President of the current OCC board is 40-year-old Brittany Lobo, who remembers being taken to choir rehearsals well before her high school years by her mother and stepfather, Lois and George.
“It was more than just weekly rehearsals,” remembers Lobo. “It was a special binding.”
Through its 47 years, the OCC has been helmed by musical directors Allaudin Mathieu, Philip Rollnick, Daniel Canosa, Doug Bowes, Sarah Saulsbury, Andy delMonte and others—and now the Purdys. Currently, Tim Imbach and Gordon Stubbe serve as main instrumental accompanists.
Director Gage Purdy praised his wife and OCC Artistic Director Crystal for helping to lead the OCC mission and doing community outreach. “She never gets enough credit that she deserves,” Gage said.
This year’s midwinter concerts
The repertoire for the current “Light in the Darkness” concerts includes a few seasonal holiday selections, along with choir members’ original compositions and a special treatment of Bob Dylan’s 1963 “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Also included is an Occidental original, titled “This Night,” penned many years ago by Doug Bowes and Paul Kinunen. Director Purdy said Bowes’ song offers a moment for the audience and choir to share a “vision of looking up to the stars and taking in the moment together.”
Describing the current concert, the group’s website says, “‘Light in the Darkness’ is about seeking and creating light when the world feels dim. It’s about music as a lantern: something we carry together, passing its glow from one heart to another. Our program will take us through moments of stillness, struggle, wonder, and celebration with each song as an ember that can ignite hope. This season’s music will remind us that even in the longest night, the promise of dawn is real. We sing them not as individuals, but as a single, many-voiced instrument, resonating with courage, compassion, and joy. So come ready with your openness and light.”
Following their opening concerts last weekend at the Occidental Center for the Arts, Purdy said, “We’ve been encouraged by the response of our recent shows. We’re attracting people from wider Sonoma County and Santa Rosa and beyond. It’s been very encouraging.”
Looking at this year’s theme about light and darkness, Purdy couldn’t help but reflect on his first years at OCC as assistant director to delMonte and Saulsbury. After joining in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic soon shut down almost all of Sonoma County’s public life in early 2020.
“After 40 years of the choir members gathering every week for rehearsals, there was nothing. It was nigh impossible to get 40 or 50 people in a room together,” he said.
Where other community groups and choirs went completely dark, the OCC strived to keep the lights on. Lobo, the current board president, brought her professional public health skills to the challenge and led the choir members through COVID-19 testing rituals, masking mandates and less-frequent rehearsals. With Purdy, Lobo and other choir leaders introduced new YouTube, Zoom and other technologies.
“It wasn’t like the previous years where my parents and all the others would gather at the Union Hotel after rehearsals or go on outings and retreats together,” remembers Lobo. “But we kept it going, and it is paying off for us now.”
In addition to ticket revenues, Lobo and other OCC leaders in recent years have secured small arts and nonprofit operational grants from county and state governments.
“We hope to continue some grant support so we can add an apprentice director position and maybe attract more younger members,” said Lobo. She was pleased to report that this year’s midwinter performances are out-selling last year’s record year of attendance, even ahead of the final weekend.
Purdy told The Sebastopol Times that members of the choir will begin new rehearsals in early 2026 for a series of May performances titled “Postcards.”
“The program includes heartfelt songs interspersed with poetry and personal stories that have connections with Occidental and the wider Sonoma County community,” he said.
There are still tickets available for the Friday, Dec. 12, 7 pm performance in Tomales at the Tomales Town Hall, 27150 Main St., Tomales, which will be a mini-concert and holiday singalong. Admission $15-$17. There are also tickets available for the Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 13-14 performances at the Glaser Center, 547 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa. Saturday’s program at the Glaser Center starts at 7 pm, and Sunday’s program at 3 pm. Admission there is $25 for adults. Children, ages 12 and under, are free at the door. (There will also be a free, sensory-friendly, 20-minute mini-concert on Sunday at 2 pm at the Glaser Center geared for children, families and others who may feel challenged to sit for a full performance.) Visit https://www.occidentalchoir.org/concerts for full details.)
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The choir is a wonderful piece of West County's tapestry. I'm so lucky to get to lift my voice in song with a group that lives & breathes community and joy. They don't just get up and sing a few songs twice a year - the choir members bring their heart and soul to every weekly rehearsal for months, and donate their time, energy, money to creating a fantastic concert experience, for the low price of $25! And kids are free!
If you want to *feel* something this holiday season, if you want to experience the true gift of Christmas joy, the Occidental Community Choir concert is where you want to be.
CORRECTION: Doug Bowes was preceded as Director by Allaudin Mathieu, who was preceded by another Director whose name I don’t remember.