'Cellist Alisa Weilerstein, the Honolulu Symphony's featured soloist this week, has a promising career ahead of her. She commands an impressive technique that conveys the passion and depth of her playing without overshadowing the music.

Only 26 years of age, she has been performing professionally for over a decade, and her experience was evident. She handled herself with assurance, playing to the audience as well as with the orchestra, navigating that delicate balance between ensemble and solo with aplomb.

Weilerstein's vehicle was Samuel Barber's 'Cello Concerto, Op.22, considered by many to be the most difficult work in the 'cello repertoire.

That may be true, but it did not sound that way when Weilerstein performed it on Friday. She flew smoothly through its technical challenges, keeping the focus firmly on the music, which sang, danced and entranced. Her technique astounded, but as a pleasant afterthought, in the wake of expression.

Barber's 'Cello Concerto is one of those works that is both interesting and well constructed — lush almost to the point of romanticism, dramatic, arresting, full of long-limbed lyricism — but it has never become an audience favorite. Composed in the mid-1940s, when classical music was struggling with its role, its future and its relationship to its audience, Barber's Concerto remains one of the great concertos of the 20th century, however infrequently performed.

Curiously, Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring: Ballet for Martha [Graham]," which opened the program, was composed at almost exactly the same time, but has become one of America's most loved pieces, even though precious little ink has been spent arguing whether it is great. On the other hand, quite a bit of ink has criticized the program's final work, George Gershwin's 1928 "An American in Paris,"without having the least impact on its enduring popularity.

All of which suggests that the connection between critical acclaim and a work's place in the repertoire is weak at best, despite what critics say.

The final piece on the Honolulu Symphony's program was Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Joseph Schwantner's "Chasing Light ...," sponsored by the Ford Made in America program.

Ford Made in America, described in a special program insert, allows small-budget orchestras throughout the nation to band together in order to commission works by living composers. Part of the agreement is that the new work will be performed at least once in each state.

As guest conductor David Miller explained, "My phone kept ringing: the League of American Orchestras were calling, saying, 'We heard you might be willing to do the Schwantner!' They needed the Honolulu Symphony to get all 50 states."

Miller agreed, the Schwantner piece was added to the program, and the commission was signed. The Honolulu Symphony was only the third orchestra to perform the piece.

"Chasing Light ..." is built in four movements played without pauses between, each based on two lines of a poem Schwantner wrote himself, describing the play of early morning light through the mist and trees of New England.

The music is descriptive, "painted" through timbre and rhythm. The second movement, for example, "describes" the arch of a rainbow by building to a central climax, then reversing out to end where it began.

Schwantner made this music readily accessible, using familiar structures and tonal systems, building momentum through repetition, and scoring in crescendos (by adding instruments) and decrescendos (by having instruments drop out).

Both Conductor Miller and the orchestra were understandably unfamiliar with the Schwantner, which meant that dynamics were somewhat leveled, entrances ragged, and the balance of lines unclear. None of it, however, seemed to prevent people from enjoying the music.

It will take time and repetition to tell whether the music will endear itself with audiences, but first impressions were that it was engaging, vivid, enjoyable and well worth hearing again.

Throughout the concert, even in the most familiar works, Miller proved to be a young conductor still refining his craft.

In general, his conducting tended toward the overly metronomic, taking the notes as gospel instead of guidelines. He is still sorting out when passages should be rough-hewn or smooth, how to dovetail the parts of mosaic textures into a whole, and when to give musicians space or rein them in.

And yet, the musicians still shone through. In addition to some wonderful playing by the usual soloists, there were a number of nonpareils: Eric Shin on vibraphone; James Moffitt on bass clarinet; Adam Snider on tuba; Todd Yukumoto on saxophone; Riely Francis on snare; and Pavel Morunov on English horn, to name only a few.