Ralph Opacic: Building Arts Institutions from the Ground Up
Ralph Opacic started as a choral and vocal music teacher at Los Alamitos High School in 1983. He had a bachelor of music degree from California State University, Long Beach, and a background as a performer himself. Teaching gave him a close look at something that bothered him: talented young artists in Orange County had nowhere serious to train. That observation became the starting point for everything he built next.
From a musical theatre company to a full school
In 1984, while still teaching, Opacic founded the West Coast Musical Theatre Company in Los Alamitos. It gave young performers a place to train in theatre outside the standard school day. Running it alongside his teaching job showed him what a dedicated arts training program could do for students who were serious about performing.
That experience led to a much bigger step. In 1987, Opacic founded the Orange County School of the Arts (OCSA) in Santa Ana. A year later, he set up the Orange County School of the Arts Foundation, a nonprofit built to keep the school's programs tuition-free and to fund its capital growth. He led both Organizations as president and executive director from 1987-2021 at which he retired.
Building the pipeline, one organization at a time
Opacic did not stop at one school. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, he founded and led a string of arts organizations, each aimed at a different gap he saw in Southern California's training options:
West Coast School of the Arts (1995-2003), for dancers who wanted to train with award-winning choreographers.
Pacific Coast Dance Fest (1998-2003), a West Coast dance intensive with housing, meals, and six hours of daily training.
Each one added a piece to a larger idea: that serious arts training should be available at every stage, not just for the few students who happen to land in the right program.
Earning outside recognition
While OCSA grew under his leadership, it started drawing attention from outside Orange County. The U.S. Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts identified it as a model arts education program. It was named a No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon School in 2006 and a California Distinguished School in 2005 and 2009.
Opacic personally earned the Jeffrey Lawrence Award from Arts Schools Network in 2012, the group's top honor for an arts administrator. He also served the organization in nearly every leadership role over roughly a decade: secretary, second vice president, first vice president, and president.
By the time he stepped down from OCSA leadership in 2021, the school had grown from an idea with little institutional backing into one of the top-ranked arts high schools in the country.
Consulting after building
Opacic did not retire from arts education. He spent time consulting for other arts schools and institutions across California and beyond, and has worked with the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center since 2011, helping arts managers and their boards strengthen how they run.
A third act at Orange County Music & Dance
Opacic's next chapter came through a decade of quieter involvement. He had spent ten years on the board of Orange County Music & Dance (OCMD), an Irvine-based nonprofit, watching it grow from a smaller project into a more established regional organization. When OCMD's executive chair, Doug Freeman, asked him to step in as chief executive, Opacic said yes.
He has described the arrangement as a "triumvirate": founder Charlie Zhang's entrepreneurial background, Freeman's fundraising experience, and his own decades of turning arts education into a structured program that can grow. Under his leadership, OCMD has built out programming that spans early childhood classes through adult dance and fitness offerings, backed by a $5 million endowment meant to keep the arts affordable for students at every level.
The pattern is consistent across four decades: Opacic sees a gap, builds an organization to close it, and then looks for the next one.
