The Honolulu Symphony's "Youthful Energy" concert includes conductor Gregory Vajda, 33, composer Michael Foumai, 19, and the Hawai'i Youth Symphony, which consists entirely of musicians who have not yet graduated high school.

The youth symphony presents a sea of impressively accomplished young musicians, some still baby-faced, others on the brink of adulthood. One could not help but be impressed, not solely because of their age (How many high school students perform in a professional venue?), but because of their sound, which was warm, full and well-balanced.

Conducted by Henry Miyamura from the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, the youth symphony is clearly an exceptional orchestra and an asset for all Hawai'i.

At the end of youth symphony's portion of Friday's performance of the "Youthful Energy" concert, Miyamura asked to see all the students who take lessons from Honolulu Symphony musicians as well as all the symphony musicians who teach these students. Scores stood.

It was a revelatory moment, a symbolic passing of the baton.

The youth symphony played the first two works of the concert; Honolulu Symphony played the last two; and in between, the two groups performed as an ensemble — musicians from each group sitting side-by-side through Sibelius's "Finlandia." One could almost see the young musicians transforming into our future professionals.

That moment in which students and teachers were standing together underscored how integrated our community is. Every young musician on stage represented a complex network of music education: committed parents, symphony musicians, band/orchestra/choir teachers, schools, studios, private teachers, amateur groups. Lose one, and the network begins to crumble. Miyamura provided the audience with a glimpse of what lies behind music we listen to so casually.

One of the works Miyamura included in the concert was "Dynasty: Concerto for Orchestra" by Foumai, who started violin in middle school, began adding on composition at age 13, and is now a sophomore at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.

"Dynasty" proved to be a colorful work influenced by film genres, which conveyed, as Foumai explained, "the idea of a theme traveling through time." It was exciting, energetic, full of vivid passages and picturesque moods — an extraordinary accomplishment for someone so young.

Conductor Vajda, originally from Hungary, opened the second half of the concert with a dramatic, energetic, and personal reading of Beethoven's "Leonore" Overture, No.3.

Although young for a conductor, Vajda sees himself as continuing a tradition: "That's what's exciting about classical music. You are the tradition — you, me, everyone on stage, is making the tradition." Quoting Mahler's famous "Tradition is laziness," Vajda explained his process of studying scores and other conductors' recordings in "figuring a piece out for yourself."

Amidst the exuberance of youthful energy, however, there is still something to be said for the mastery that comes with maturity.

Friday's concert closed with an amazing performance of Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2 by a Russian pianist at the height of her skills, Lilya Zilberstein.

Zilberstein began impressively, with that unusual solo piano opening that builds and builds, finally releasing into massive, rolling waves of sound. And then she kept getting better, phrase by phrase by phrase. The final two movements were stunning: the third, a tour de force of power and brilliance, the second a tour de force of the soul.

The one frustration was Rachmaninoff's maddening habit of burying lovely passages within a thundering orchestra, which Vajda let stand, which meant that stretches of the piano part (some of it, granted, intended as accompaniment or background to the orchestra) were nearly inaudible.

Overall, however, and with seeming aplomb, Zilberstein met Rachmaninoff's legendary demands for virtuosity and tremendous strength coupled with tender delicacy. Her fortissimos boomed without becoming brittle, her tone was gorgeous, and her playing was ever lucid, no matter how dense the music. She voiced every chord, every passage magically so that melodies sang amid swirling clouds of notes. Outstanding.

As the last note faded, the audience leapt to its feet, applauding wildly, whooping, whistling, cheering and calling, "Brava! Brava!"