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Orange County Music & Dance will open a second, 25,000-square-foot campus on Cowan Avenue in Irvine this November, adding conservatory and pre-conservatory programs and early childhood classes under new CEO Ralph Opacic.
A second building, a bigger promise
Santa Ana, California, Sep 22, 2026, ZEX PR WIRE — Orange County Music & Dance has bought a 25,000-square-foot building for $10.8 million to serve as its second campus. The purchase doubles the nonprofit’s footprint to nearly 50,000 square feet. It is scheduled to open in November, after renovations, minutes from OCMD’s current Irvine headquarters.
Ralph Opacic, who became OCMD’s chief executive last October, says the new space solves a problem the organization could not solve with its original building alone.
“We needed the space to truly be a comprehensive pre-K to 12 arts community music and dance school,” Opacic said.
What moves, what stays, what’s new
The Cowan Avenue campus will hold four new dance facilities, a large rehearsal space for ensembles such as band, orchestra, and musical theater, a second piano lab, a music production studio, and about 15 flexible rehearsal rooms.
Two new programs will launch there, starting a couple of months before the building opens. The first is a conservatory program: college preparatory, pre-professional training for high school students performing at an intermediate to advanced level. The second is a pre-conservatory program for sixth through eighth graders, built as a feeder into the high school track.
“It further strengthens the pathways available for those students who, at an early age, are seeking a premier experience that supports their goals,” Opacic said.
Early childhood music and dance programs for children 6 months to 5 years old will also open at the new site, along with OCMD’s adult evening programs. Discovery programs for kindergarten through fifth grade will stay at the existing Irvine headquarters. OCMD expects enrollment to grow by 400 students once the second campus is running.
Buying instead of building
OCMD had spent time planning a larger project at the Great Park before shifting course this year. Buying an existing building instead of constructing a new one cut an 18-month timeline down to six, according to Opacic, and let OCMD acquire the property without taking on debt.
That change in plan is why the Cowan Avenue building is opening this fall rather than years from now. Opacic points to the shorter timeline as the reason the new conservatory programs can start enrolling students this year instead of waiting for a multi-year build.
A pathway with no gap in it
Opacic has spent decades building programs for young performers, first at Orange County School of the Arts and now at OCMD. The phrase he uses for what the Cowan Avenue campus is meant to do is “womb to tomb.”
“The program is going to be a one-stop shop to serve families that have children, from womb to tomb,” Opacic said.
In practice, that means a child can start in an infant music class, move into discovery programs in elementary school, enter the pre-conservatory track in middle school, and finish in the conservatory program through high school, all inside one organization. Adult classes mean the pathway does not stop at graduation either.
Opacic has hired several new staff members for the conservatory programs, including some who previously worked with him at his former school.
What the expansion is meant to fix
The new building is not simply more room. It lets OCMD run programs it could not run before: specialized group and technique classes, musicianship and theory training, rehearsal and repertoire-based work, individualized coaching, and performance opportunities across music genres and dance styles. Those are the pieces that turn private lessons into a conservatory track, and OCMD did not have the space to offer them until now.
Opacic says the timing matters because families are asking for exactly this kind of continuous program, one that does not force a student to leave for a different school once they outgrow beginner classes.
“How fantastic would it be to start getting kids engaged and involved in music as infants or toddlers, and then be involved in their full music development?” Opacic said.
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About Ralph Opacic
Ralph S. Opacic, Ed.D. is chief executive of Orange County Music & Dance, a performing arts nonprofit headquartered in Irvine, California. He founded and previously led Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana, California, and has spent more than 25 years building arts education and training programs for young performers.
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