The Santa Barbara Symphony, engaged in a search for a new conductor, on Sunday showcased not only an outstanding candidate for the job, Daniel Meyer, but an incomparable soloist, cellist Zuill Bailey.

There is no such thing as a perfect concert, but this one came close, with music by Mozart, Shostakovich and Dvorak. The orchestra was in peak form, and the young maestro and soloist each brought considerable passion and energy to the music.

The local music community has a particular attachment to Bailey, since his days as a summer student at the Music Academy of the West. He is now based in El Paso, Texas, from which he ventures forth to make a stream of guest-artist appearances. An alumnus of Peabody Conservatory and the Juilliard School, he brings with him his cello, a 1693 Matteo Goffriller.

In Sunday’s concert, he performed — brilliantly — the Cello Concerto No. 1, Op. 107, by Dmitri Shostakovich, with stunning support from the orchestra. The composer wrote it in 1959 for his friend, Mstislav Rostropovich. Bailey played the opening, allegretto movement forcefully, following with a melancholy moderato, and then into the third movement cadenza. This heartfelt solo led directly into the finale, which had Shostakovich’s characteristic bite and wit.

This concerto was composed in the aftermath of World War II, when the Soviet Union was still trying to recover from the brutal struggle with the Nazis. In addition, Shostakovich personally was in a state of constant ideological conflict with Josef Stalin. Bailey seemed to pour his whole soul into the performance, moving the audience to its feet at the end. The cellist embraced both the conductor and the Symphony’s principal cellist, Jeffrey Rutkowski, as the audience clapped and cheered.

Meyer and the orchestra began the afternoon with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Overture to the opera “Don Giovanni,” a momentous work with undertones of dread.

After the intermission, the program offered a piece of pure sunshine, Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Opus 70. As profound as the Mozart was, as bitter and dark as the Shostakovich, the Dvorak soared with the great Czech composer’s love of life.

This was a rich musical feast indeed, with Meyer exhibiting excellent credentials as a conductor. He is, at present, the resident conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony.