Players are off to a swinging start at the Mancini Institute

“It’s all about the players.” It’s a phrase that’s heard often at the annual summer concerts of the Henry Mancini Institute, along with “It’s all about these fine young musicians” and, more affectionately, “It’s all about the kids.”

And so it was Saturday night at Royce Hall in the opening event in HMI’s schedule of eight free concerts. The full Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra was present for this one, 84 young (average age 24) professionals from the U.S. and elsewhere -- full-scholarship attendees at a monthlong series of concerts, seminars and master classes.

The opening programs in the Mancini series (now in its eighth summer) have generally been the least polished, understandably so after only a few days of rehearsals. Saturday’s program, which included demanding works by Lee Holdridge, Vince Mendoza, Charles Fox and the institute’s artistic director, Patrick Williams, was no exception. The playing was generally accurate and well-crafted, impressively so, given the difficulty of much of the music.

One of the institute’s principal goals is preparing players for the complex demands of a modern professional musician, in which genre lines are blurred, classically trained players are asked to perform in pop and jazz settings, and jazz players turn up in chamber and orchestral music. For this concert, an even more unusual environment was presented -- swing music, a genre not especially familiar to the youthful classical and jazz players in the HMI Orchestra.

With the ebullient Doc Severinsen and the talented vocal quartet of Don Shelton, Lynn Roberts, Amick Byram and Ian Freebairn-Smith leading the way, the HMI Big Band and Orchestra romped enthusiastically, and authentically, through a set of swing era classics reaching from “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me)” to “Swing, Swing, Swing” -- an appealing taste of the colorful, eclectic sounds yet to come in the free Mancini programs.

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The Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra

Where: Royce Hall on the UCLA campus

When: Saturday at 8 p.m.

Price: Free

Contact: (888) 464-1903