MUSIC REVIEW : Stunning Concert by Symphony : Music: Its performance of familiar Dvorak work ranks with best of U.S. orchestras.

In early October, musicians of the San Diego Symphony took a pay cut to keep the financially beleaguered organization solvent. But there has been nothing cut-rate about the orchestra’s playing this fall. Rather, it has become a more disciplined and responsive ensemble, displaying the verve and focus that is characteristic of the best American orchestras.

Saturday’s concert of Berlioz, Mendelssohn, and Dvorak under guest conductor Murry Sidlin was one of the local ensemble’s finer efforts. A frequent guest on the Copley Symphony Hall podium, Sidlin was named artistic director of the symphony’s SummerPops program last week. The tall, silver-haired maestro enjoys unmistakable rapport with both the San Diego players and with the loyal audiences of his Classical Hits series.

Sidlin’s gift is the ability to telegraph with his entire body the emotional specific gravity of every segment of the music, and the orchestra reflects his unrelenting intensity. Although his idiosyncratic conducting style is a flurry of upbeats innocent of traditional meter patterns, his intentions always hit the bull’s-eye.

His red-blooded interpretation of Dvorak’s Symphony No. Eight contrasted vividly with Heiichiro Ohyama’s Apollonian approach to the same work with the San Diego Symphony last month. Sidlin neglected neither the work’s bucolic rustlings nor its suave melodies, but he hurled its stentorian declamations with more than a hint of swagger. His passionate drive underlined the work’s dramatic character and shaped it magnificently. It was a far cry from the frequent characterization of Dvorak as a polite, good-natured drawing room composer.

Twelve-year-old violinist Tamaki Kawakubo brought more than a wealth of technical acumen to Mendelssohn’s familiar E Minor Violin Concerto. She not only displayed an uncanny appreciation of the concerto’s ripe Romantic style, but in the final movement, she captured that fleet, effervescent melodic articulation that can elude the most seasoned professional. Only in the slow middle movement did her essentially eloquent phrasing descend to predictable contours.

Self-assured and at home on stage, Kawakubo is a name to watch. She made her local debut with the symphony in July. The young musician from Los Angeles will give the current crop of violin virtuosas a run for their money in a few short years.

The orchestra brass sparkled in a vibrant account of Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival” Overture, with which Sidlin opened the concert. What better fanfare to welcome a Wunderkind?