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ALSO like Tovey, Wilkins (who coincidentally can play the tuba as well) had a less than privileged upbringing, as the child of a single mother in a housing project, that keeps him centered. A trained cellist, he didn't have a private lesson until he got to college.

Yet he said that after being taken to hear the Norfolk (now Virginia) Symphony when he was 8, he decided on the spot that he wanted to be a conductor.

"All of my critical life choices -- like who I hung out with, what I did with my spare time and whether I could dream of going to college -- all of those ques- tions were answered for me by default, because I had fallen in love with music," he said.

As self-described "poster child for the value of music education in the schools," Wilkins said he's always looking for opportunities to inspire children.

"I'm kind of a zealot when it comes to the importance of painting a doorway onto a brick wall for a kid and using music as the tool" to break through, he said. "I don't care if kids grow up to be professional musicians. It's just opening those doors to self-awareness, possibility, hope and a life."

Although he sees himself as "essentially a classical conductor," Wilkins said he prefers variety. "Last season, I had as much fun at the Bowl with Pink Martini as I did doing an all-Tchaikovsky concert two weeks earlier.

"Because he had fallen in love with Ravel and Fauré, all this extra color found its way into his music. Don't you think that if Mozart heard some of our good jazz or pop music, he would have dug it?"

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