A basic problem with the David Del Tredici - Michael Daughtery school of Wrong-Way Crossover (popsy classical, not Beethoven for cosmetics commercials) is how these works buckle under the weight of a full (and often super-sized) orchestra. At today's San Francisco Symphony Chamber Music Series it became painlessly obvious that if you add major talent to a small ensemble, the results can be terrific. A large Sunday matinee audience in Davies Hall, over half of the 2,800 seats occupied, came close to going into shock at the beginning of Aaron Jay Kernis' "100 Greatest Dance Hits," but slowly warmed to this imaginative, funny, well-crafted work, and by the next event, the world premiere of Mark Inouye's "Find the Cheese," the house was rocking. [Bowing to tradition and audience age-and-preference, the innovative middle section was bracketed by dedicated, flawless performances of Giovanni Bottesini's Grand Duo Concertante, from the 1840s, with Florin Parvulescu (violin), Stephen Tramontozzi (bass), Marc Shapiro (piano), and Dvorak's 1872 Piano Quintet in A Major, with Diane Nicholeris and Zoya Leybin (violins), Adam Smyla (viola), Peter Wyrick (cello), Janice Weber (piano).] Kernis' 1993 work is written for string quartet and guitar. It opens with "Introduction to the Dance Party," played entirely by plucking and hitting the instruments, but before you give up on the "concept," you should hear the rich rhythmic varieties violinists Sarn Oliver and Chunming Mo Kobialka, violist Christina King, cellist David Goldblatt and guitarist David Tanenbaum got out of this movement. Still, the Introduction is just that - and the way to get the audience to a different mode of listening. In a bit of an overkill, the concluding movement, "Dance Party on the Disco Motorboat," is another attempt at "shocking," a tribute to "Soul Train," with bongos, sandpaper blocks, triangle and a few shouts from the musicians. It's cute and unnecessary, a demonstration that pop-classical can be too much even on a small scale. Ah, but the two middle movements of the Kernis! They are simply terrific, regardless of genre - they provide music. "Salsa Pasada" is melodic, both beautiful and challenging, as its pre-Castro Cuban sound segues into a portion of true "classical music" (whatever that may be). "MOR Easy Listening Slow Dance Ballad," the third movement, is even better: a slow-mo fugue wanders off into deliberate, effective dissonance, which then transforms into a warm, delightful section of real substance, a memorable segment that creates a demand for repeated hearings. The orchestra musicians, usually at their best in these chamber-music solo outings, were in rare form, especially Tanenbaum. Inouye's work was a precedent-setting performance at the chamber-music series: not a cross-over, not "influenced," just jazz, plain and simple. The trumpet player, who is equally at home with an orchestra or in a band, performed the premiere of "Find the Cheese," backed up by a similarly multi-talented group: Raymond Froehlich (percussion), Larry Epstein (bass) and Mark Levine (piano). The personable young musician - who joined the Symphony two years ago, at age 28 - got away with an overlong introduction to the piece, taking a roundabout, leisurely path to explaining the title: when he played with an opera company in a small Italian town, he couldn't find his way home in the old section of town, felt like a lab rat in the maze, with his apartment as the sought-after "cheese." The piece reflects both the confusion and exhilaration of being lost, it finds its way "home" in a most satisfactory manner. As all through the afternoon, performances were exemplary, but the generous solos Inouye wrote for himself won the day for the impressive, multi-talented trumpet player. Janos Gereben/SF, CA [log in to unmask]