Last Saturday's Valentine's concert by the NBSO was an visual and auditory treat. For starters, the Zeiterion's stage held a new acoustic Wanger-Diva shell with panels the color of claret and burgundy, with thin gold columns in between. The new shell, which was recently donated to the orchestra by New York's City Center, was a warm and welcome addition to the stark white stage, and pleasing to both eyes and ears.

"Intimate" was Music Director David MacKenzie's word for the chamber-sized orchestra that performed Darius Milhaud's "La Création du Monde." Consisting of a first and a second violin, a cello and an alto saxophone (instead of a viola), this ensemble was joined by two flutes, two clarinets, an oboe, a bassoon, a French horn, a trombone, two trumpets, and a piano, but it took three classical percussionists to play what one jazz drummer played alone with his "traps" in 1920s Harlem.

Mesmerized by the sophisticated improvisations of African-American expatriate musicians jamming in the dimly lit nightclubs and smoke-filled cafés of Paris, French composer Darius Milhaud made a pilgrimage to Harlem in 1922 to hear "authentic" jazz and blues. A year later, he wrote a ballet based on Yoruba creation stories that was produced in Paris. "La Création du Monde," which Dr. MacKenzie calls "the rowdiest piece in the orchestral repertoire," portrays the chaos before Creation, then the emergence from chaos that produced plants and animals, then men and women, who collide and couple to syncopated Gershwinian rhapsodies and riffs inspired by blues and jazz.

The second piece, Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla's "Concierto para bandoneo´n," called for a string orchestra augmented by piano, percussion and harp and continued the evening's theme of love and desire. The soloist was Signior Daniel Binelli, master of the small hand-held reed organ invented by Heinrich Band in 1850. Originally intended for use in chapels and churches too small for pipe organs, this accordion-like instrument became popular in dance halls in Buenos Aires and Europe and, more recently, Japan, where the Argentine tango is all the rage these days.

The sensitive fingers of Signior Binelli produced such passionate, seductive music that after each movement, some listeners started to applaud, until Signior Binelli smiled and hel d a finger to his lips to silence them. At the end of the piece, the audience applauded and cheered, and many stood in appreciation of the soloist's virtuosity. In response, he propped his elegant instrument on his knee again and played a nostalgic tango as an encore.

So exotic and wonderful was the first half of this unusual and surprising program that Felix Mendelssohn's familiar Symphony #4, Italian, which the composer wrote to express the joy he felt during his first trip to Italy, seemed almost anticlimactic. As its robust opening measures slowed expansively, I felt I was again emerging from the long tunnel that begins in Germany and ends as the sun-drenched landscape of Italy spreads out before the traveler's eyes. By turns joyful, reflective and dance-like, Mendelssohn's Italian symphony combines late classic and early romantic elements, and the youthful NBSO played it with verve and passion.

Everyone who heard this brilliant, unconventional Valentine's Day program fell in love with the music, the orchestra, the soloist and the conductor. Those who heard Dr. MacKenzie's pre-concert talk and Signior Binelli's demonstration of the bandoneo´n had a firsthand demonstration of his gift for making "classical" music accessible and exciting without talking down or compromising quality programming. This is especially important when reaching out to children and young people, which has become a major component of the NBSO's educational mission. So far, the "Music in the Morning" program is bringing classical music to 29 schools, reaching 10,000 students, and teachers and administrators are already seeing positive results.

Dr. MacKenzie has impressive credentials and broad experience as an educator with a holistic vision of how music develops self-discipline, teamwork, sensitivity and imagination. His knowledge, humor, and warm, relaxed delivery make him the ideal person to direct the NBSO's outreach to the wider community and the schools and to diversify the symphony's programming and personnel. Perhaps with the help of an angel or two, he will also preside over the founding of the much-desired and much-needed community music school which the talented young people of New Bedford and the SouthCoast deserve.