By Pierre Ruhe

For the AJC

Saturday night in Alpharetta, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra closed its summer season with fireworks at the end and an intriguing guest on the podium, making his U.S. professional conducting debut.

Enlarge photo

Steve Peterson In this 2008 file photo, conductor Ilyich Rivas (15 at the time) rehearses Beethoven's 8th Symphony with the orchestra at the Denver School of the Arts in Denver, Colorado, on Monday, Nov. 3, 2008.

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Ilyich Rivas is 16 years old, born in Venezuela and raised in Ohio and Colorado. He’s been waving a baton in front of orchestras since he was 9.

Although he’s only completed 10th grade — and doesn’t yet have a driver’s license — he’ll begin next month studies at Baltimore’s college-level Peabody Institute of Music and in a training program with the Baltimore Symphony. He’s already got a powerful agent in London. In a field that rewards maturity, wisdom and experience — maestros often hit their strides as senior citizens — Team Rivas plans to launch a substantive career when he turns 18.

Where does this talent come from? Comparisons are at best foolish and at worse corrosive to the healthy growth of a young artist. But like the supernaturally precocious Mozart, Rivas seems blessed with both nature and nurture: he’s got several generations of professional musicians in his family and his father (an experienced conductor) has dedicated his life to his son’s development.

Rivas’ ASO debut program flattered a young conductor with scores that are greatly enhanced by a strong leader on the podium; there were no works that the orchestra could play convincingly on auto-pilot.

They opened with Verdi’s “Sicilian Vespers” Overture — music of light and shadow, public declarations and private sighs. Rivas doled out the phrases carefully, making the orchestra (and audience) hang on his every gesture. His reading molded it into more a stand-alone concert piece than an opera overture — a legitimate interpretive decision — but it felt a little too abstract, detached from any drama on love, life and death.

Another prodigy, solo violinist Elena Urioste, delivered a sensitive and pleasing account of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. She’s already performed with the ASO at Ebenezer Baptist Church, as part of the Detroit-based Sphinx organization, which nurtures African-American and Latino musicians. Now fully fledged, she’s got charm when she plays but as yet not a distinctive personality.

Rivas, to his credit, found interesting things to say in the concerto’s accompaniment, with a fresh phrasing here, a surprising harmonic emphasis there.

Rivas closed the evening with a blockbuster by his namesake: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. The ASO, which knows this score cold, played beautifully for him, from the splendid horn calls in the introduction to the fragrant woodwind solos of the second movement.

The conductor’s presence was felt throughout, sometimes heavily, always thoughtfully; holding the reins tightly, his pacing felt deliberate and manicured. Still, he had a rich, comprehensive overview of the symphony. With so many details in place, one also wished for more freedom and a wider palette of emotions, from gloomy sorrow to exuberant joy. But the remarkably talented young Mr. Rivas has a lot of time to figure out these matters on his own.

Pierre Ruhe blogs about classical music at ArtscriticATL.com