With Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” and Bernstein’s “West Side Story” overture in tow, the Chicago Symphony’s fall 2024 opening night has love on the mind. For a time, though, this concert was shaping up to be more heartbreaking than heart-rending. Last month, CSO principal trumpet Esteban Batallán announced he was taking a year-long leave — if not leaving permanently — to take the same seat at the Philadelphia Orchestra. Two weeks ago, more bad news hit: Violinist and former CSO artist-in-residence Hilary Hahn, recovering from a double pinched nerve, bowed out of opening night on the advice of her doctors. Unlike the evening’s pair of star-crossed lovers, all was well that ended well at Orchestra Hall on Thursday night. If the trumpets were rattled by Batallán’s departure they didn’t show it, with assistant principal Mark Ridenour helming the section and striking a fine balance between brio and blend. And violinist Benjamin Beilman, stepping in for Hahn, proved himself quite the silver lining in Barber’s violin concerto — more on him later. Leading it all was Andrés Orozco-Estrada, one of the most consistently engaging conductors in the CSO’s regular guest roster. The Colombian maestro activates the same head-to-toe expressivity as music director designate Klaus Mäkelä — who, by the way, now takes pride of place in the CSO’s hall decor and transit ads. Take the Four Dances from “Estancia,” by Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera. That piece is a polyrhythm-palooza — threes on twos, twos on threes, three-counts and two-counts alternating. Without changing his beat pattern, Orozco-Estrada was able to demonstrate it all with his body, whether that was a jerk of the head, a snap of the elbow or a bounce on the balls of his feet. No wonder this piece came out sounding lucid as chamber music, as though each line had been teased apart and individually combed. That rhythmic vigilance benefitted Michael Tilson Thomas’s “Agnegram,” as spirited an opener as Ginastera’s Dances was as a closer. The conductor has been battling a dire form of brain cancer since 2021. Not only has Tilson Thomas far outrun the life expectancy of his diagnosis, but he’s still working, leading the CSO last season and opening the New York Philharmonic’s season as recently as last week. Tilson Thomas composed the eight-minute piece in 1998 as a tribute to a longtime patron of the San Francisco Symphony, where he was music director for more than 20 years. The work encodes her name, Agnes Albert, as a musical anagram — hence the punny name. Those repeated notes get packaged in a rangy, rondo-ish form, whose sections make plain Tilson Thomas’s admiration for fellow composer-conductors Leonard Bernstein and John Adams. During the ovation, Orozco-Estrada generously held up the score as a tribute to Tilson Thomas. Orozco-Estrada still had motion to spare for more detailed gestures throughout the program. A wrist flourish cued the harp in “West Side Story,” punchy and dazzling in an arrangement by Maurice Peress, Bernstein’s onetime assistant conductor. (Of course, that included the obligatory “mambo!” shouts by orchestra and audience.) In “Romeo and Juliet,” he also zoomed in on filigree details: indicating a legato repeat of a syncopated violin theme, and urging the same section to whisper their interlude before the big love theme. Ironically, the program’s big repertoire work was the one that would have most benefited from a panoramic view rather than fixating on the small stuff. The Tchaikovsky overture was bold and brash from the get-go, taking the wind somewhat out of the fight scene’s sails. Then again, the fight scene did that on its own, sounding more refined than ruffian. All may be fine for now in Trumpetland, but earlier CSO bugbears persisted on Thursday, most pointedly in “Romeo and Juliet.” Trombones were more often crunchier than smooth, the tuba had an exposed gaffe and the horns were hot and cold, not just here but all night. Benjamin Beilman takes the stage to perform Samuel Barber’s “Violin Concerto, Opus 14” with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Sept. 19, 2024. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) But back to Beilman. Chicago made the boyish violinist, 34, the musician he is today. He began studying with pedagogues Almita and Roland Vamos at the suburban Music Institute of Chicago as a preteen. Even after moving to Ann Arbor, Beilman’s devoted family made the 500-mile round trip every week. Beilman is, by now, an old hand at sudden substitutions. He made his CSO debut jumping in for Renaud Capuçon last December. But opening night is different. Take it as no slight to Mr. Beilman to say musicians of his stature — humbler than Hahn’s, if still madly successful for a solo violinist — rarely get a shot like this, much less at one’s de facto hometown orchestra. The pressure was on. Every once in a while, a performance has such finesse, such je ne sais quoi, that it far exceeds the sum of its parts. Beilman’s Barber was one of them. His tone is mellow, favoring the instrument’s middle register. That, paired with Orchestra Hall’s unflattering solo string acoustic, pushed pianos to their vanishing point; so did Beilman’s tendency to play on the side of his bow, with his wrist curled. But for its many bravura moments, the essence of Barber’s concerto lies in its introspection, its subtle soulfulness. Beilman seized on that captivatingly, his interpretation searching and yearning. Later, Beilman had a brush with disaster when his bow briefly slipped from the strings in the middle of the third movement. Beilman only smiled, made knowing eye contact with Orozco-Estrada, and calmly jumped right back onto the movement’s moto perpetuo hamster wheel. All in all, he dropped a bar of notes — about a second. Even with that slip, Beilman’s vision for the Presto spun gold out of a movement that often sounds like a puffed-up etude. The key? Taking the movement at the tempo Barber actually marked, rather than the 10 or so clicks slower that have become customary. At that speed, Beilman was able to carve out longer, more expressive phrase lines. It also reflected a spotlight back on the orchestra, playing at its limit but etching the mercurial intricacies of Barber’s score. A virtuosic trading of eighth notes between first trumpet and clarinet near the end of the movement is always notable; at this tempo, it became astonishing, clarinetist John Bruce Yeh and trumpeter Tage Larsen volleying those notes like the climax of a ping-pong match. Benjamin Beilman, center, is applauded after performing an encore with Andrés Orozco-Estrada conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Center on Sept. 19, 2024. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) Surges of applause coaxed Beilman back for an encore, which he introduced pithily: “Bach.” Technically, yes — but one scarcely hears Bach like this. Beilman cheekily ornamented the Gavotte en Rondeau from the E major partita with a trill here, a run there. In his hands, one of Bach’s most ingrained works became a thing of delight and discovery. Another memory lingers. As the Barber’s first movement rounds the corner into the recapitulation section, the soloist has a few precious seconds to breathe as the orchestra sings out the main tune. On Thursday, Beilman took that moment to bask in the sound in full bloom around him, a smile playing his lips. It was not a smile one usually gets the privilege of seeing. It was the smile of a kid living his dream. “Orozco-Estrada Conducts Romeo and Juliet” repeats 1:30 p.m. Sept. 20; tickets $59-$299. Orozco-Estrada also conducts the annual Symphony Ball, featuring pianist Lang Lang and Stravinsky’s “Firebird” suite, 6:30 p.m. Sept. 21; tickets $199-$299. More information at cso.org Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic. The Rubin Institute for Music Criticism helps fund our classical music coverage. The Chicago Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.