Lekeu's 1891 Adagio qualifies as "new music" not only by its novelty but also by its dense Wagnerian sound, grandeur, and passion, with touches of early Schoenberg, and — especially — Lekeu's teachers, Franck and d'Indy. Had he lived, Lekeu might have become another Richard Strauss, albeit with a Gallic sound. The performance featured gorgeous solo passages from Concertmaster Krista Bennion Feeney and Principal Violist Linda Ghidossi-Deluca.

To make this performance even more significant, members of Ghidossi-Deluca's Young People's Chamber Orchestra participated in the concert, a dozen high-school-age musicians from Santa Rosa playing behind the NCCO musicians, but taking solo bows at the end while their elders/teachers discreetly stayed in the wings.

There was a lot of family warmth too at the end of the concert, as every member of the orchestra presented a rose — and multiple hugs and kisses — to Bennion Feeney, who is leaving after seven years as the orchestra's music director and concertmaster; she ended up with a large bouquet and what might have been a tear or two.

In the melancholy but warm, comforting Puccini (a funereal dirge, eventually incorporated in the finale of Manon Lescaut), and in the wildly contrasting moods of the Beethoven "Serioso" quartet, the inheritance of the Bennion Feeney era shone forth clearly, with clean, heartfelt, impeccable ensemble playing. But virtuoso-in-extremis came in Bermel's Soul Garden, both in the understated but difficult accompaniment from a string quintet and in the impossibly brilliant solo from violist Kurt Rohde.

Bermel, a fast-emerging New York composer, is definitely a man to watch. He has the kind of eclectic background Philip Glass and Steve Reich have brought to their work — Bermel studied at Yale, the University of Michigan, in Amsterdam, Jerusalem, plus Ghana (Lobi xylophone), Dublin (uilleann pipes), and Bulgaria (Thracian folk music) — and yet his voice is totally distinct among the (aging) new music figures.

Soul Garden, originally (and improbably) written for a dance company, is a 15-minute viola concerto, with aural "gestures" and unearthly sounds, quite without any concession to conventional tonality or conventional audiences. Program-note references to jazz and vocal music drew a blank from this listener, who found no connection to anything as conventional, hearing instead a striking, often unattractive or downright "ugly," but challenging and powerful piece.

Throughout it all, Rohde produced eldritch sounds with aplomb, sweating physically, but with no perspiration audible in the performance. For the audience, it would have been beneficial to hear the whole piece again; for Rohde, it might have turned into instant carpal tunnel syndrome or worse.

What did Rohde, a composer of note himself, think of the work? He said he was "extremely impressed with its pacing," with Bermel's "demonstration of a masterful sense of dramatic shape; he knows how to allow it to unfold and ebb and flow." Of the opening and the viola's entrance (which made me think of "unearthly sound" in the first place), Rohde found it "utterly moving." In spite of the obvious effort it requires, Bermel's work is regarded by Rohde as "a delight to play, a piece that is imbued with clarity, without sacrificing intensity or intrigue." For the listener, intensity and intrigue were obvious; to hear clarity, it must help to be a musician, a composer, and someone who worked on the piece for a long time. Still, withal, even a naive listener could hear the work's striking integrity.

For New Century's next season, programs range from Telemann, Britten, and Elgar to the world premiere of Jorge Liderman's Rolling Strings,local premieres of Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa, and Gordon Chin's Formosa Seasons Violin Concerto. See the NCCO Web site.