With dark beard and flyaway hair almost to the shoulders, Ilan Volkov might be cultivating a look to match his status as ascending young maestro, but his conducting is the opposite of flamboyant.

Economic of gesture, controlled yet controlling, Volkov concerns himself only with the music, even if this means the audience can't always pick up on the clues that body language offers. However, there was no mistaking the energy and rhythmic pzazz of Aaron Copland's rarely heard Dance Symphony.

This was the composer's first essay in orchestral writing, inspired by the German expressionist horror film Nosferatu, conceived as a ballet score in 1920s Paris and only acquiring this title and form some years later back in the States. Volkov was a persuasive advocate, ensuring that the slow, lyrical melodies never became sentimental, and that the final whacky, witty explosion of sound made a logical climax.

After the Shostakovich overload in last year's centennial, some breathing space has been a relief, so it was to Volkov's credit that he could bring a clarity to the Tenth Symphony that allowed it to speak afresh. The restraint he brought to the opening Moderato set the tone. Accents were under- rather than overstated, so the music always flowed unimpeded, taking some of the brutality out of the brilliant Allegro and making it possible to hear the work as an intensely personal statement about survival.

The two symphonies framed a performance of Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto. Its first movement demands a powerhouse of a soloist, but Nikolai Lugansky also brought a quiet finesse to its more expressive moments.