Spirited showmanship amid the strings

The Russian-born conductor Eduard Schmieder knows how to showcase and assist young musicians. For eight years, he has brought competition-winning players -- mostly in their 20s -- from around the world to Los Angeles through his International Laureates Music Festivals. On Saturday, the eighth festival culminated in a four-part, mostly string program at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The meaty piece was Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” Quartet as arranged for string orchestra by Gustav Mahler. The work takes its name from the second movement variations on the composer’s touching early song. The ensemble of about two dozen, called I Palpiti (Heartbeats) and led with precision by Schmieder, dug into the piece with the freshness and vigorous commitment of youth. German concertmaster Peter Rainer had lovely lyrical solo moments, as did Ukrainian cellist Georgiy Lomakov.

The concert showpiece was Francis Poulenc’s Concerto in G minor for organ, strings and timpani, with a 20-year-old American soloist, Cameron Carpenter, a graduate student at the Juilliard School.

Carpenter is a follower of the Virgil Fox tradition of showmanship versus the E. Power Biggs school of cool restraint. A lanky model as well as an organist, Carpenter made a fashion statement with his black stovepipe trousers lined with sparkling vertical strips.

This mode of dress helped underscore a point he made in his program essay, in which he wrote that young people are receptive to classical music if given a “highly engaging live performance.” That’s exactly what he gave, as gauged by the enthusiastic audience response.

In Poulenc’s moody, changeable concerto, Carpenter favored high dynamic contrasts and rapid shifts in color. He tended to overwhelm the orchestra but invariably provided visceral excitement. Kristina Gee of L.A. was the proficient timpanist.

Schmieder opened the program with two short and pleasant works for strings -- Fritz Kreisler’s Bachian “Preludium and Allegro” and Nino Rota’s middle European-flavored “Concerto per Archi.”