Naturally, a youth orchestra doesn't play this well without gifted and dedicated instrumentalists filling its ranks. But it also doesn't play this well without an equally gifted and dedicated leader who can teach and inspire them to do their best.

For a dozen years, Neale has been that leader, and the results have been evident in concert after concert, tour after tour, CD after CD. Sunday's concert was only the latest reminder of how much he has accomplished during his tenure.

The afternoon's most overt demonstration of virtuosity came at the end, with Neale's own suite of music from Stravinsky's ``Firebird'' (it followed the plan of Stravinsky's Suite No. 3 from 1945, but substituting the original full-orchestra version of each section for the composer's reduced version).

Here was an unparalleled opportunity for orchestral display, and everyone rose magnificently to the challenge, from the dark, insinuating opening to the graceful ``Dance of the Princesses'' to the ferocious ``Infernal Dance.''

Virtuosity of a different sort was apparent in the first performance of ``Portrait of the Artist as a Tormented Young Madman,'' a gripping and resourceful eight-minute orchestral work by Anthony Cheung.

Cheung, a senior at University High School and a pianist with the Youth Orchestra, writes with fearless bravado for the full orchestra, and his score is full of charged, pi quant moments. It pursues one distinctive motif from its sparse beginnings as a trumpet solo through an increasingly dense weave of orchestral textures (Bartok is a frequent model for the alternation of close- knit and transparent writing).

As the thematic variations pile up, so does the dramatic tension, until it all disperses in a powerful (and perhaps too abrupt) climactic end. Neale and the orchestra, to whom the piece is dedicated, gave it a superb performance.

Four selections from Bizet's music from the stage play ``L'Arlesienne'' began the afternoon alluringly. Particularly fine was the second Minuet, with lustrous playing by flutist Irina Alexeev, harpist Melina Meissner and oboist Irami Osei-Frimpong.

The only dismaying part of the program -- and it was a heartbreaker -- was Sarah Chang's dreadful performance of Bruch's G-Minor Violin Concerto, a morass of coarse string tone, out-of-tune playing and rhythmic errors.

After her uncomfortable stab at Prokofiev's First Concerto with the Symphony last week, there's no avoiding the worry that this extraordinary career could be in serious trouble. When a soloist of Chang's caliber appears with a youth orchestra, it's usually an inspiration for the young players; Sunday's performance instead offered a chilling cautionary tale. ..

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