Sinfonietta Bel Canto to host annual Voice Invitational Sept. 29

The Sinfonietta Bel Canto, under the direction of Dan D’Andrea, will host its first concert of the season, the annual Voice Invitational.

Some of the most outstanding young singers in the western suburbs and Chicago area will be featured.

This season, Sinfonietta Bel Canto celebrates the 150th anniversaries of two of the titans in 20th century music — Gustav Holst and Maurice Ravel.

The orchestra will explore two of Holst’s orchestral works, St. Paul’s Suite, op. 29 and Egdon Heath, op. 47, at the concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 29, at the acoustically pleasing St. Paul United Church of Christ, 5739 Dunham Road in Downers Grove.

Ticket information can be found at sinfoniettabelcanto.org or by calling (630) 384-5007. Parking is free.

Sinfonietta Bel Canto has a strong and vital history of supporting vocal performance in the western suburbs and Chicago area.

Seven arias by Donizetti, Franck, Gluck, Mozart, and Rossini will be featured in this performance. Highlighted artists include Joellen Wang of Clarendon Hills, Isabella Yang of Naperville, Norah Lougachi of Oak Park, Winifred Wolf of Elmhurst, Derek Buckley of Aurora, and Danlie Zhao and Juliet Hollifield, both of Chicago.

The “St. Paul’s Suite” is a beautiful collection of four musical gems that Holst composed for his students at St. Paul’s in Hammersmith London in 1911.

In the first decade of the 20th century, Holst and Vaughan Williams became interested in the revival of English folk music. Holst and Williams began to incorporate folk music in their compositions and continued to do so intermittently throughout their lives. No finer example of this can be found than the final movement, where Holst arranged the “Fantasia on the Dargason” and “Greensleeves,” which he had previously written from his Second Suite in F for Military Band.

Gustav Holst composed “Egdon Heath” (Op. 47) in 1927, in response to a commission from the New York Symphony Orchestra. It is subtitled “Homage to Thomas Hardy” and the piece describes the Dorset landscape, Egdon Heath. Its mood is sometimes bleak and forbidding, and its depiction of the cold, impersonal heath is chilling. Near the end, a ghostly dance is heard, before the work finishes with a sense of mystery.

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency and National Endowment for the Arts.