Critiques

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra offered a glimpse of its future on Thursday afternoon at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center here, when Jacques Lacombe, a fresh-faced conductor from the Trois-Rivières Symphony Orchestra in Quebec, led the ensemble for the first time since being chosen to be its next music director. Based on this initial encounter, a program featuring standard works by Brahms and Dvorak, the prognosis is decidedly positive.

But this past spring, when I attended a Newark performance under Mr. Lacombe’s baton, what I heard bespoke a vital, artistically significant musical organization. It was a memorable concert, comprising a new piece, “Sur les Rives du Saint-Maurice,” by Mr. Lacombe’s fellow Quebecois, the late Jacques Hétu; Brahms’s D-Major Violin Concerto, played with real poetry by soloist Jennifer Koh; and a nuanced account of Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony. Mr. Lacombe could not have chosen better works to show off his players’ mettle.