The Honolulu Symphony's concert Friday night revealed congenial parallels among the featured artists, violin soloist Karen Gomyo and guest conductor Jacques Lacombe. They exuded an air of quiet excellence, exhibiting exceptional command of technique, gracious collaboration and a focus on musicality.

Strikingly beautiful, Gomyo strode on stage in a form-fitting scarlet gown that drew 'oohs' and 'aahs' from the audience ... then proceeded to eclipse her beauty with an even more impressive performance.

Gomyo sailed through Lalo's challenging "Symphonie Espagnole" with grace, tossing off the technical fireworks apparently without effort. Her instrument, a 1703 Stradivarius on permanent loan, had a full-throated timbre that was at its most remarkable in its middle, singing range, where it seemed to lay the music's emotions bare.

Before the concert, Gomyo described life with such a violin:

"It's kind of like people and relationships. It goes everywhere with me, and I mean everywhere. I feel like I really get along with this instrument, and I think because it's so sensitive, I've become more sensitive, too."

Gomyo played with passion, but without edgy extremes, her tone warm and sweet, even when intense. Her lyricism in particular seduced and lingered in memory — the way she shaped a line or colored a phrase, where she emphasized or tapered a note.

Similarly, Lacombe conducted without exaggeration or physical flair, but elicited a wonderful sound, well-balanced, with excellent ensemble and expression.

"My approach," Lacombe explained, "is to be a musician on the podium, so I don't come to impose order. Whatever melody you have to conduct, you have to conduct it the way you would sing it. I let them play to see what they have to say."

The musicians had a great deal to say Friday night, and that was part of what made Lacombe's conducting so appealing: He gathered and coordinated rather than dictated, and the orchestra shone in response.

In Ravel's "Alborada," for example, Paul Barrett's long bassoon solo kept getting better with each entrance, as his playing expanded into the space Lacombe gave him.

Lacombe's reading of Shos-takovich's Fifth Symphony was particularly riveting, but it would have been nice if someone had taken a moment beforehand to explain the work's history and the controversy over its levels of meaning. Granted, programs usually perform that function, but since Friday's did not, many in the audience likely missed an important aspect of the music.

The orchestra's brass and percussion captured Shostako-vich's frenetic celebrations and garish caricatures of military pomp, crudely stomping through Russia's gorgeous melodies of folk-like grace and elegant beauty, played so beautifully by the strings and soloists, including violinist Ignace Jang, flutist Susan McGinn, oboist Scott Janusch and hornist Wade Butin.

Lacombe capped Shostakovich's somber Symphony with his "Polka," a scintillating encore that began with a great mallet solo by Eric Shin and ended the concert on a lighter note. All in all, the music was exceptional — delightful, well-played, moving.