It was justa decade agothat soprano Julia Bullock appeared on the stage of Davies Symphony Hall, an unknown artist still in the midst of her undergraduate training at the Juilliard School, and delivered a radiant, spine-tingling account of “Somewhere” to cap the orchestra’s concert performance of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story.”

She sang it again on Thursday, June 29, as an encore following a canny and invigorating set of songs by George Gershwin and Margaret Bonds, and the same qualities were still in evidence — the same plush vocal tone, the same gift for soaring, eloquent phrasing that can turn any melodic line into a heartfelt prayer.

The difference was that this time, we knew what was coming.

It’s no exaggeration to say that that San Francisco appearance, captured on alive recordingof “West Side Story” led by Michael Tilson Thomas, was a key early step in forging a career for Bullock, who now serves as one of the eightCollaborative Partnersfor Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen.

She’s become an important voice for the music of John Adams, most notably his 2017 opera“Girls of the Golden West.”(Bullock was scheduled to sing the female title role in the world premiere of “Antony and Cleopatra” in September, butwithdrewto give birth to her son.)

She’s a champion for a wide range of classical and popular music, assembled in thoughtful programs of her own devising. She’s especially probing in her considerations of theracial componentin our understanding of classical music, which is something the field desperately needs at this moment.

周四与萨尔的外观onen and the orchestra, the final program of the orchestra’s 2022-23 season, was a perfect demonstration of Bullock’s genius. Bonds, who died in 1972, has benefited from performers’ newfound interest in exploring the overlooked music of female and African American composers, but her work has yet to become a staple of the repertoire.

The two songs Bullock included, brief as they were, showed us how much we’ve been missing as a result. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” a setting of a Langston Hughes poem, unfolds in splendid minor harmonies with a glorious, oracular melody that catches the poem’s broad historic and geographical sweep. Another Hughes setting, the haiku-like “Winter Moon,” packs as much beauty into three lines and barely 15 seconds of music as many artists can in an entire symphonic movement.

Bullock delivered both songs superbly, and they only gained in stature when set against the glib seductiveness of Gershwin. (“He was inspired by Black artists,” she tartly pointed out, “but he also profited from his appropriation.”) In the perennial “Summertime” and then in a brassy, showbiz rendition of “Soon,” Bullock made us hear both the enormous skill of Gershwin’s writing, and its faint air of second-handedness.

There was nothing of a compromise in the evening’s splendid opener, a brisk and evocative orchestral essay by the Indian American composer Reena Esmail. The 10-minute piece began life in 2017 as an impassioned protest on sexual politics titled “#metoo,” but has since been reorchestrated and retitled “Black Iris.”

除了一个政变德剧院提出the women of the orchestra sing a wordless chant — which must land as a revelatory hiring expose for different orchestras — the gender subtext seemed largely subdued in this performance. What struck a listener instead were the sheer energy of Esmail’s writing — a churning hive of thematic activity based on solid harmonic footing — and the vibrancy of her orchestral palette. A late-arriving cello solo, skillfully delivered by principal Rainer Eudeikis, put the seal on an exciting performance.

Salonen captured the kinetic qualities of “Black Iris,” then carried them over after intermission to a swingy, sonically robust account of Ravel’s ballet score “Daphnis et Chloé.” The Symphony Chorus, led by guest director Joshua Habermann, contributed great waves of well-knit wordless harmonies, and Ravel’s sparkling, fluid sonorities ebbed and crested with impeccable control.

Reach Joshua Kosman:jkosman@sfchronicle.com; Twitter:@JoshuaKosman