Talented teens and the sound of symphonic discovery

Conductor Benjamin Zander has led the YPO for 37 years. (KOREN REYES)

New England Conservatory typically bustles with undergrads and graduate students, but every Saturday, the Preparatory School takes over and NEC transforms into a haven for kids, ranging from pint-size twinkle-twinklers to the highly talented teenagers who fill the ranks of the school's senior ensemble, the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, led for 37 years by the impassioned conductor Benjamin Zander.

On Friday evening in Jordan Hall, YPO gave a season-closing concert that boasted expressively charged and technically accomplished performances of music by Bartok, Brahms, and Schumann. Boston is extremely fortunate to have youth orchestras of such high caliber. This ensemble, with some 112 members listed on the program, features a giant string section that spilled out onto a large stage extension. Most orchestra members are under 18, though a group of NEC undergraduates bolster the YPO brass and woodwinds, and on Friday night made up the entire trombone section.

Under Zander's baton, the orchestra came together for a vibrant, muscular reading of Bartok's Dance Suite. Written in the early 1920s, the piece shows just how deeply the composer had internalized various folk styles, to the point that he could invent his own folk-flavored music with much of the distinctiveness and color of the Hungarian, Romanian, and Arabic originals. Zander and the orchestra brought these folkish qualities to the fore, with evocative woodwind solos and forceful string playing that had both appealing clarity and an appropriately rustic bite.

After intermission came Brahms's Fourth Symphony, dispatched with nearly unrelenting intensity. One of the special pleasures of hearing a youth orchestra comes from knowing that many of its members have been encountering the music, even a cornerstone of the repertory like the Brahms, for the very first time. As a result, the playing can sometimes brim with the visceral thrill of discovery. That was the case here, and even when balances occasionally ran askew or phrases called for more room around their notes, it did little to detract from the larger impact.

Between the Bartok and the Brahms, Tavi Ungerleider, a 17-year-old cellist from Sudbury, gave a technically confident and musically sensitive performance of Schumann's Cello Concerto. He was among the 40-plus high school seniors graduating from the orchestra this year, and after the scheduled program, Zander read out each of their names and the schools they will be attending. Just under half are heading to conservatories. As is the YPO tradition, all were bid a poignant farewell with the "Nimrod" from Elgar's "Enigma" Variations.

Jeremy Eichler can be reached at jeichler@globe.com.