The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra (SYSO) performed three thrilling works by Russian composers on Sunday: two works from the late 19th century and a 20th century masterpiece by Shostakovich. The concert was the first of three regular season concerts for the academic year and showcased the enormous talent represented by this group—a 2009 Mayor's Arts Award recipient and the largest youth symphony organization in the United States, serving more than 1,100 students through four orchestras and three summer programs. The symphony's financial aid programs ensure that students have the opportunity to receive a stellar musical education, regardless of their family's financial means, and the generosity of the company and that of its donors have made it a wealth of talent.

Maestro Stephen Radcliffe and his young stars delivered a high-powered start with the bold Carnaval Overture composed by Alexander Glazunov in 1892. The piece has an optional organ accompaniment which was not performed, and—given the power of the orchestral part—not terribly missed, though the Benaroya Pipe Organ is a grand one.

The symphony then performed Shostakovich's transcendent Cello Concerto No. 1, with soloist Lennart Jansson (pictured at left with his mother). Those who love the cello—such as I—were elated to see this piece on the program, as this work deftly displays the versatility of this instrument, which is so often cast as strictly brooding and melancholy, in four movements including a mellow cadenza. (For fans of the melancholy register for which the cello is best known, the haunting and ethereal second movement leading into the extended cadenza is sheer magic.) I will add that it is perhaps ironic that, in a work that so definitively shows the instrument's versatility, much of the solo cello's part is a development of a very simple theme of four notes.

The piece was written for the acclaimed cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and I daresay he himself would have been quite awed to hear 16-year old virtuoso Jansson show such mastery over this challenging piece today. (Jansson in fact did perform for Rostropovich before the elder master's death in 2007) A seasoned soloist, Jansson was perfectly poised throughout the performance, with a calm, unassuming, even humble demeanor. In the vacuum left by Joshua Roman, auricome and abdicated darling of the Seattle Symphony, Jansson is poised with an andearing nature and formidable talent to become Seattle's next young master of the cello if he so desires. However, I would not dare suggest that Jansson stands in any shadows; this wunderkind is a true Seattle cynosure for music lovers.

The grand finale was Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor. As we enter the holiday season—which is also Nutcracker season, of course—it was a pleasure to hear this old favorite, which is one of the composer's most haunting and tumultuous works among those regular performed today, and an antidote to the twee excerpts of the Sugar Plum Fairy—that favorite of less than imaginative marketing heads everywhere—that will be dancing in our heads constantly by mid-December. I find that the one thing that most often distinguishes youth orchestras from their professional counterparts is not technique, but sheer power and stamina, and this performance completely obliterated that expectation. The outfit played with as much power as they did precision, and the final coda of the fourth movement was enough to make one faint.

This was a magnificent beginning to a new year at SYSO, and I hope that these young musicians are as excited for the next concert as their audience. Bravo to the entire symphony, and especially to young Mr. Jansson and the magnificent Maestro Radcliffe.