The Honolulu Symphony bids farewell this weekend to its home-away-from-home at Hawai'i Theatre with a terrific concert featuring guest conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni and violinist Vadim Gluzman.

The audience — having to choose among the Honolulu City Lights parade, one of the biggest University of Hawai'i-Manoa football games ever and the symphony — was smaller than usual but richly rewarded.

Zeitouni was impressive. Once an orchestral percussionist, Zeitouni exhibited exceptional rapport with the musicians, commenting afterward that he found the orchestra "very comfortable, very responsive. I had a blast."

There were no dusty tomes on Saturday's program: Together, conductor and orchestra brought the pieces alive, focused and so vibrant their energy was palpable.

Zeitouni conducted as though he not only understands the music, as every conductor must, but also loves it. The music never once slipped into autopilot: Conductor and orchestra sounded fully engaged, as though each moment were being created for the first time. His Beethoven Concerto had a classical polish, expressive yet controlled, precise yet warm, while his Dvorak Symphony No. 8 whispered and thundered with romantic passion.

Zeitouni presented strong ideas, clearly expressed, but best of all were his impeccable balance and precise tempos. He gave slow movements full measure and blazed through fast movements without rushing either one. His conducting conveyed the inner sub-beats that give phrases their pacing.

The expressive leeway Zeitouni gave the musicians yielded great solos, including many by bassoonist Paul Barrett, timpanist Stuart Chafetz, flutist Susan McGinn, and trumpeter Michael Zonshine.

The concert opened with Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man," a quintessentially American work in sound and sentiment — bold, forthright, noble, thrilling. What came next — Gluzman's performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto — overshadowed it.

"I've known (Beethoven's Concerto) all my life," Gluzman said, "but I made a conscious decision not to play it until I turned 30. It is such a Mount Everest for the soloist, the orchestra, the conductor."

Gluzman seemed to scale that mountain with ease, in part because of the beautiful tone of his violin, which has a light yellow sound, both warm and clear, that amplified Gluzman's expressive strengths. He excelled in Beethoven's ethereal, crystalline themes and in those mysterious tonal detours that Beethoven loved. The second movement was tender, almost dreamy, while the third was a technical firestorm that elicited a standing ovation. The performance, and the program, served as a memorable aloha to Hawai'i Theatre.