A sampling of the feast at Mancini concert

The closing “Musicale” of the Henry Mancini Institute’s summer sessions always provides a broad overview of the program’s musicianship, goals and achievements -- with a few high-profile guests added for good measure. On Saturday night at Royce Hall, this year’s event followed a similar pattern, mixing performances by the HMI Orchestra and the HMI Big Band with appearances by songwriter Burt Bacharach, singer Renee Olstead, saxophonist Tom Scott and trumpeter Cecil Welch

The detailed aspects of the HMI program, which includes 84 full-scholarship young professionals from the U.S. and other countries, were actually best experienced in the eight free programs preceding the “Musicale.” Those performances, which also featured the HMI Orchestra and Big Band, as well as various chamber ensembles, explored a range of styles and genres, from jazz and classical to film music and popular song.

The lengthy “Musicale” program, with a large array of participants, could only touch upon such diversity. But what really mattered, in any case, was the high quality of the HMI players. Interestingly and appropriately, that always seems to be the show-stealing pleasure of this annual rite of summer.

The concert opened with a tribute to the institute’s namesake via a pair of compositions, “Cameo for Flute” and “The Spanish Trumpet,” and an arrangement of Alfred Newman’s “Conquest” by Henry Mancini. HMI participant flutist Claire Temin played with graceful style on the former composition, Welch more ebulliently on the latter. Other orchestral works included the groove-driven “Going to Indigo” by composer participant Nathaniel Beversluis and HMI artistic director Patrick Williams’ “Romances (for Jazz Soloist and Orchestra)” (a piece whose repetitious vamping was mercifully rescued by Scott’s fiery saxophone improvisations).

But the orchestral highlight was Patrice Rushen’s specially commissioned “Sinfonia,” a musically lush composition that was the evening’s only work sufficiently challenging the musical proficiency of the talented HMI Orchestra.

In the headliner positions, 15-year-old Renee Olstead sang “Meet Me, Midnight” and “Summertime” with startlingly mature musicality. Bacharach offered a medley from his vast catalog of material, bringing vivid, personal musical insights, as only a song’s composer can.

It’s understandable that as a fundraiser the “Mancini Musicale” would emphasize accessible music and popular artists. Still, even in this context, one might have hoped for the HMI Orchestra to have been more fully in the spotlight so its gifted players could have had more opportunities to display the depth and scope of their skills.