Boris Brovtsyn stars with Worthing Symphony Orchestra

The audience reaction - and that of the orchestra itself, palpably confirmed this.

Director John Gibbons declared afterwards: "I cannot remember the audience going as wild after anything that wasn't a piano concerto."

They called out to him as he took the stage at the Assembly Hall, on Sunday, March 11, and even after the first movement, the excitement was bursting forth in spontaneous applause.

This was an audience hungry to hear Brovtsyn's interpretation of, at last, the most popular violin concerto in the repertoire by one of his fellow countrymen.

Worthing had already been stunned by his debut here in the British Elgar concerto and had since heard the 29-year-old annually in the Mendelssohn, Brahms and Beethoven.

Maybe some Radio 3 listeners of the station's recent Tchaikvsky Experience series had swelled the sense of anticipation.

In Brovtsky they now sense a compelling stage presence, a technical command of his instrument that inspires awe, and a passion for the music that is as much innate as it is modestly transmitted.

You can sense this simmering in him but it is never showy, in this young artist who may one day be lost to Worthing audiences and his career grows.

He took some risks in the performance and his command of tone and bravura was electrifying from his first entry.

I was at the rehearsal, for which Brovtsyn was delayed by 1 hours on his train journey from South London, and I could tast the relish the orchestra have for playing with this violinist.

Gibbon and he had met earlier in the week to talk through their take on the work and Gibbons' control of the orchestra, which in this work plunges from delicate, sometimes vocal accompaniment to blazing, headlong racing, hand in hand with the soloist, showed skill and strength.

Flautist Jane Pickles and clarinettist Jon Carnac were delicious partners and later oboist Ruth Contractor and bassoonist Brian Sewell, who had just starred in Prokofiev's Classical Symphony.

What Brovstyn chooses to play next season will form its highspot, now, by definition.

He is head and shoulders the WSO's most exciting guest soloist and together they have the capability of firing a small power station.

He has yet to play the Bruch No 1 or the Scottish Fantasy. He plays strong Russian works by Shostakovich, Stravinsy and Khatchaturian, the Benjamin Britten and the Walton from England, and he will soon become the first to play the John Adams in Brazil.

Or he may reprise the Elgar for those who missed it and those who crave a repeat.

The Tchaikowsky ends in full flight and Gibbons shrewdly programmed the Concerto to complete the afternoon.

It could not be followed - not even, said Gibbons afterwards, by an encore.

Brovtsyn was visibly moved once again by his reception from the Worthing fans.

In the weeks running up to this concert he had contracted a virus playing in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, from the orchestra, half of whom, he told me, were already suffering from it.

He had been hallucinating under a raging, astronomical temperature for a week and confessed he had feared he might die.

The concert began with a rare and welcome performance of a Haydn symphony from Gibbons. He chose the late Drum Roll, No 103, from his second London series and the key of Eb enable us to hear the richness of two clarinets in the woodwind mix.

Conductors who underestimate Haydn fail one of the greatest composers of the lot. Gibbons took care to rein his tempos and the prize was a performance of clarity of articulation and vigour in rhythm.

The two horns, Richard Bennett and Alan Newnham were in impeccable form.

The eight woodwind, in fantasy, brought us, with the rest of the orchestra, Mendelssohn's mercurial Scherzo from his Midsummer's Night's Dream incidental music - we must salute, too, the second desks, Phillida White (flute), Emma Fielding (oboe), Victor Slaymark (clarinet) and Linda Nealgrove (bassoon).

Then, in another rewarding piece of planning, the WSO gave us the Classical Symphony of Prokofiev, whose admiration for Haydn and respect for his era, combined to provide illuminating contrast and comparison with the Drum Roll Symphony.

This was an exemplary and invigorating performance that would have taken the honours on the day.

But Boris was still to come.

Tchaikowsky's First Piano Concerto and his Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture close the WSO season on April 15, along with the First Symphony of another Russian, Kalinnikov.

This is an unknown name to some, me included, but if this is a gift of something quite new to us, Gibbons brings it knowing we will not be disappointed.