In the 1980s, I heard violinist Midori perform with the Cleveland Orchestra. Aged 13 and barely as tall as the seated concertmaster, she thrilled the audience, playing like a pro. I heard violinist Leila Josefowicz, who performs with the Seattle Symphony in November, playing chamber music, her legs so short she had to wind them around the chair to keep herself balanced, at the summer camp for gifted young musicians in Ohio, also in the ’80s. She was nine. Now she has a McArthur Fellowship, a “genius grant.”

There is something awe inspiring and exciting to hear a young and extremely gifted musician, an occasion which comes up rarely.

I had that chance again Sunday.

Natalie Dungey is 12. She was the soloist in Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto with the Auburn Symphony at the Auburn Performing Arts Center last weekend. From the first measures, she showed that she is a musician, not just a technical whiz kid. What separates the one from the other is the ability to feel the music, to shape the phrases so that they arch and soar, or expand, or flow serenely when needed: that is, to give the music life. Natalie incorporated all this feeling into her performance.

With the orchestra under conductor Stewart Kershaw giving her supportive accompaniment, she encompassed the work’s technical challenges without a glitch anywhere. Her legatos were smooth as silk, her pitch impeccable, including at one point where she blew a high emphatic note, and followed it without a breath to a very soft one well over an octave below, joined by a mere thread. Astonishing.

She was equally able to play crisply and fast, her runs and her tempos even.

We do occasionally see young string players who are wonderfully gifted, like Midori and Josefowicz, or cellist Matt Haimovitz, who began his career in the Seattle Youth Symphony. It is much less usual to see a young solo brass or wind player. The reason is physical. In general, it requires adult-sized lung capacity to blow a long phrase without taking a breath, or to give it the energy a particular phrase may need.

Dungey is a slight pre-teen, but an orchestra horn player informed me that she makes very efficient use of her breath. Certainly she seemed to be able to play long phrases without any problem. It isn’t just a gift to be able to play like this. It takes long and persistent hours of work.

There are many videos of performances she has given in the past three years or so, on YouTube, but looking at those after this concert, I could see a leap Sunday in the maturity of her presentation. Dungey was poised and professional, she played with aplomb and with apparent ease, on an instrument on which Wynton Marsalis played for one of his Grammy Awards. It was lent to her for these performances

On either side of the Hummel, the orchestra gave first a sparkling performance of Rossini’s Overture to La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie), and finished the concert with the Symphony No. 1 of Rachmaninoff. It’s a difficult work to play, requiring considerable skill from the musicians who rose to the achievement. The trombones notably gave fine performances, and conductor Kershaw shaped it well and made a good case for this somber work.