BEST BET

Two community musical groups, the Rio Hondo Symphony Orchestra and Chorale Bel Canto, will combine forces in two classical concerts marking the opening of their 1990-91 seasons.

The first concert will be at 8 p.m. Saturday in the new Shannon Center for the Performing Arts, 6760 Painter Ave., on the Whittier College campus. Tickets are $20 and include a reception afterward. A nearly duplicate concert will be at 3 p.m. the next day in the Whittier High School auditorium, 12417 E. Philadelphia St., Whittier. It will be free.

What’s the difference? Technically, the first concert is the chorale’s opener for its ninth season, and the chorale charges admission. Its season tickets are $40. The second event marks the opening of the symphony’s 58th season, and its four concerts a year traditionally are free. The Shannon Center seats 403, while the high school auditorium holds 2,400.

The highlight of both events will be Carl Orff’s oratorio “Carmina Burana,” featuring the 80-voice Chorale Bel Canto and the 40-voice Whittier College choir, both under the direction of Stephen Gothold, dean of college life and a music professor at the college. The oratorio is based on 25 Latin poems of the 13th Century and takes its name from a monastery in Germany where the manuscript was preserved.

Thomas L. Enders will sing the baritone solo, a part he has performed in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Enders, who joined the Whittier College faculty last year as assistant vice president for student financing and enrollment, also has done several operatic roles. Tenor soloist Alvin Brightbill is director of choral activities at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo and has appeared with the Portland Opera and the Roger Wagner Chorale. He also was assistant conductor of the William Hall Chorale for six years. The third soloist is soprano Jean Gothold, the chorale director’s wife, who teaches voice at Whittier College and has studied and performed in Europe.

To help celebrate the opening of the Shannon center, both concerts will begin with Beethoven’s “Consecration of the House Overture.” Beethoven composed the overture in 1822 to mark the opening of the Josephstadt Theatre in Vienna. An extra piece on the program Sunday afternoon is “Serenade in E Minor for Strings” by Elgar, a romantic work from the 19th Century.

This is Wayne Reinecke’s third season as conductor and music director of the 80-piece symphony composed mostly of volunteer musicians from the community. Reinecke is an associate professor of music at Pasadena City College and is founder and conductor of the Pasadena Community Orchestra.