In presenting a rare and bold all-contemporary program, the SF Symphony attracted (in addition to a number of empty seats) a noticeably younger clientele, including a tattooed, T-shirted contingent usually encountered at rock concerts.

The “sweet and spicy” program led off with the sharp Nordic spice of a world premiere—–a very bold, adventurous “Convergence” violin concerto by the Swede Jesper Nordin, which proved to be a triple-threat achievement involving at least four technicians to control the piece: In addition to the orchestra with violin soloist, there was electronic sound as well as a large-screen video. That left soloist Pekka Kuusisto competing with 40-foot images of roiling multicolor waters overhead threatening to steal the show (as video often does).

It was a massive technological undertaking which came off without mishap, though composer Nordin, 52, was found walking about the stage like an attending physician to tweak the electronics in mid-premiere (a necessity in such collaborations).

If it was a triumph, it was only due to the remarkable soloist and to this show for techno-geeks (O.K., me too) drawn to 21^st-century innovation on the concert stage. Who could overlook the local performing debut of conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen when he too found himself recruited to work the Theremin-like electronics by waving his hands?

If not exactly an unqualified triumph: Consider the visible shrinking of the concert-going public during the ensuing intermission.

Nordin’s half-hour-long concerto ran the gamut from extended violin improvisations to traditional Swedish micro-tonal folk-song quotes (i.e., those tones falling in pitch between a piano’s notes), with occasional jarring explosions in the orchestra. The most interesting by far was the “playing” of the electronics—quite agreeable!—by a wave of the hand, done intermittently by both Salonen and Kuusisto.

The solo was performed by the amazing pedaling violinist Pekka Kuusisto, one of the most thoroughly musical and innovative soloists of recent years as he alternated between true violin sound and electronically enhanced. Dressed casually in a black T-shirt, Kuusisto seems born for the stage as he calmly played virtuosic segments unerringly in both acoustic and electronic modes on his wired Stradivarius.

The wild, wonderful and distracting video abstractions for “Convergence” had been created by visual artist Thomas Antoine Pénanguer.

John Adams, 76, is widely considered Northern California’s supreme living composer. Here, in his retrospective 1998 “Naive and Sentimental Music,” he has produced some of his most widely accessible music, a very digestible package requiring no antacids to assimilate. His longest for orchestra, this lyrical 47-minute work, launched by a flute-and-harp duo, floats along like a river boat on a sunny day, producing some of his loveliest themes. One could almost sense that, yes, this was composed during a hideway in the tranquility of redwoods, and yes, its mood was predictable from his hearing Bruckner’s “Romantic” Symphony, arguably as romantic as any music can be.

Adams throws in multiple shifts of meter that kept conductor Salonen hopping and twisting, but harmonically, this is a welcome bowl of steaming hot soup, even when evolving into growing conflicts. By the finale, in which the eight percussionists are furiously at work grabbing every mallet within reach, there’s the Adams of old in his minimalist guise. Pity that so many subscribers had chosen fleeing instead of listening—and enjoying.

MUSIC NOTES— One conclusion regarding the sizable halftime walkout: As receptive as the Davies Hall audiences are to innovation, it’s also clear why orchestras normally sweeten world-premiere unveilings by adding some highly digestible and familiar Dvorak, Brahms or Tchaikovsky afterward. It’s the old “If I must eat my spinach, I want apple pie for dessert!” outcry, which is not confined to the lil tykes….A SFS musician in the parking lot confided to me, “Yes, this program was quite difficult (to play), especially the Adams….” Though billed as a young Finnish violinist, Kuusisto is already the artistic director of a European orchestra…. The orchestra personnel dedicated the Oct. 6 performance to the memory of the eminent arts booster, Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

S.F. SYMPHONY in Nordin world premiere and Adams, Oct. 6-7 at Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco. For info: (415) 864-6000, or go online www.sfsymphony.org.

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