Leonard, 26, a native New Yorker and Juilliard graduate, returned after intermission for “Exsultate, jubilate.” There’s always some confusion in characterizing this eternally popular piece. Is it a motet? A cantata? Or, as the program note simply put it, “a small concerto for soprano and orchestra,” by turns operatic and symphonic? Whatever it is, the previously rather tepid Bowl audience suddenly stood and cheered after Leonard’s ardent rendition of the concluding “Alleluia.”

Los Angeles Times, July 2008