UTAH SYMPHONY, CONDUCTOR JULIAN KUERTI, BASSOONIST LORI WIKE, Abravanel Hall, Sept. 25, additional performance Sept. 26 (801-355-2787)

Julian Kuerti is a young conductor to look out for. He is someone who'll no doubt be making a name for himself in the next few years.

Currently finishing his stint as the Boston Symphony's assistant conductor, Kuerti is making his Utah Symphony debut this weekend.

At Friday evening's concert, Kuerti, who is still in his early 30s, showed himself to be a musically sound conductor. His gestures are very expressive, and he elicited wonderfully nuanced and well-articulated playing from the orchestra.

The Shakespeare-themed program opened with Bedrich Smetana's early and seldom played tone poem "Richard III," op. 11.

A fairly short but dramatic work, the young Canadian conductor captured the character of the piece, eliciting a vibrant and stirring reading from the orchestra.

The symphony's principal bassoonist, Lori Wike, is this weekend's soloist in John Williams' "The Five Sacred Trees."

Written in 1992 for Judith LeClair, the New York Philharmonic's principal bassoonist, the work is based on Celtic legends and is captivatingly descriptive and evocative. It's a colorful score and displays Williams' imaginative sense of orchestration to the fullest. He blends and contrasts the soloist's part with the orchestra and lets the bassoon float through the richly textured, but never too dense, orchestral fabric.

This is Wike's second outing as soloist since joining the Utah Symphony in 2005 (previously she played Ellen Taffe Zwilich's concerto), and she showed once again that she is wonderful in the role. Wike brought out the unique character of each of the five movements with her expressive and nuanced playing.

This was particularly evident in the opening movement, "Eo Munga," with its lengthy solos that open and end it.

The second movement, "Totan," is also memorable for the violin solo that begins this movement and which gradually turns into a poignant duet with the soloist, with the orchestra offering an atmospheric backdrop. Concertmaster Ralph Matson played his solo beautifully, and Kuerti allowed the orchestra to play subtly and wonderfully nuanced.

The concert ended with the orchestral sections from Hector Berlioz's "Romeo et Juliette," op. 17.

Kuerti again managed to get some wonderfully fluid playing from the orchestra. The reading was eloquent and polished. The string section especially sounded luminous and rich.

Berlioz was a master of orchestration, and Kuerti didn't miss any opportunities to coax nuanced playing from his ensemble. The orchestra played with feeling and produced a massive palette of expressions. And Kuerti's expressive gestures on the podium worked particularly well here. He paid close attention to details in the score, and the result was colorful and nicely textured playing.

With what he put on display Friday evening, Kuerti is definitely a newcomer who will be welcomed back to Abravanel Hall in the future.

e-mail: ereichel@desnews.com