The most important stop on my yearly tour of concert halls occurred Saturday afternoon, when I attended the New York Philharmonic’s first Young People’s Concert of the new season. Last year, I reported from Carnegie Hall, where the patron saint of these events, Leonard Bernstein, lives on in the presence of his daughter Jamie, an alumna of the old Carnegie series and a lifelong crusader for this type of vital programming. This time I opted for Lenny’s old orchestra, to see how they are preserving the great tradition.

The host for this year’s events is actor John Tartaglia. Despite his commedia dell’arte name, he seemed utterly unprepared: Reading woodenly from a script for nearly 20 minutes, he insulted the children not with condescension but rather insincerity. His protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, he is obviously not a fan of classical music, and his sophomoric comments about his hatred for opera were exactly the wrong message to send.

But some very fine performances from the Philharmonic saved the day. Beginning with the Polonaise from “Eugene Onegin” and concluding with the finale of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.4, the orchestra captured the attentions and the imaginations of the kids quite securely. Under the baton of Alastair Willis, and with the graybeards and the first-chair players notably absent, the orchestra sounded fresh, innovative, almost brash. If only they could replicate this enthusiasm on a weekly basis.

Composer Kevin Puts was also on hand, but since this is a family event and we would be concerned about those children in the audience who speak Yiddish, the press release carefully informed us that his surname rhymes with “foot.” With a theatrical device borrowed from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “Mozart and Salieri,” Mr. Puts sat at a piano or computer at the front of the stage and contemplated the writing of a new composition while the orchestra intoned his musings for all to evaluate. The actual piece, titled “Network,” was a rather involving perpetuum mobile that was warmly received by the young crowd.

There is another dimension to the young people’s concerts, one often ignored by members of the critical community who attend these events for free.There were many adults, especially older people, who came without any grandchildren or nieces in tow. With Carnegie Hall charging up to $150 for one ticket, an afternoon with the Philharmonic might be the best seven bucks that you’ll ever spend.