Young Hands In the Center of an Unforgiving Spotlight

Its programs are built around repertory cornerstones, which these musicians appear not to find daunting, and each concert includes the premiere of a commissioned work as well. The performance level is almost always what you would expect from a full-time, professional adult orchestra, and this group outshines some of the adult ensembles that parade across New York stages night after night. At Carnegie Hall on Sunday afternoon, the orchestras music director, Ryan McAdams, put his young players in what could have been an unforgiving spotlight. Beethovens Leonore Overture No. 3, for example, in which currents of dark, menacing power and heroic fortitude are intertwined, makes hefty demands on an ensembles energy and unity. Listeners could quibble about Mr. McAdamss decision to have the trumpet calls played onstage rather than off, but this was an electrifying reading, and the vigorous, magnificently polished string playing in the final section of the score made any such reservations seem beside the point.

Ryan Gallaghers Strife (2008) challenged the musicians flexibility conceptual as well as technical by moving briskly (at times precipitately) between thorny, dissonant passages and soft-edged lyrical ones. But they seemed as much at home in this changeable score as in the Beethoven; the percussion, brass and woodwind sections clearly relished the attention Mr. Gallagher gave them.

So did Haochen Zhang, an 18-year-old pianist, who contributed a deft, assertive account of the works concertolike solo line. He also gave a graceful, energized performance of Mozarts Concerto No. 20 in D minor and played an elaborate set of variations on a Chinese folk theme as an encore.