It's called "counter-programming."

On a night when ice warnings were posted for much of Western Virginia, Maestro David Wiley and the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra offered a program bursting with steamy Latin dance rhythms.

Most of Monday night's music at the Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre was in the super-warhorse category. But a happy discovery for most concertgoers, who filled more than half the theater, was Mexican composer Arturo Marquez's "Danzon No. 2." In only 13 years, this sensual Cuban dance piece has put Marquez's name on concert fliers all over the world.

After a workmanlike reading of the very first of Antonin Dvorak's 16 "Slavonic Dances," the RSO was joined onstage by dancers from the Latin Ballet of Virginia for the Danzon. They returned for the famous "Spanish Dance" from Manuel de Falla's "La Vida Breve" and several other pieces on the program.

Their moves were stylish and intense, but with the exception of a funny and sexy pas de deux during the last of Leonard Bernstein's "Three Dance Episodes" from his stage work "On the Town," they added little to the concert experience.

The high point of this concert was the "Symphonic Dances" from Bernstein's re-telling of the Romeo and Juliet story, "West Side Story," which is a half-century old this year.

The Dvorak may have had a somewhat perfunctory feel, but the RSO was at the top of its form for this magnificent orchestral tour de force. Both Wiley and his players responded to Bernstein's quintessentially American rhythms and melodies.

Acting principal trumpet Sycil Mathai was recognized by Wiley after this and the other Bernstein piece for his growly, bluesy solo work.

Another notable newcomer was saxophonist Brian Sacawa, whose work on soprano, alto and tenor sax was strikingly beautiful in the Bernstein and in Maurice Ravel's super-hit "Bolero," which was the evening's finale.

"Bolero," said Wiley in his pre-concert lecture, is the Seinfeld of classical music: a masterpiece "about nothing," based on materials that would be mundane in other, lesser hands.

This performance, which features what is probably the longest crescendo in any well-known classical piece, came to a raucous, triumphant conclusion with the famous trombone glissandi, played expertly by RSO principal Dayl Burnett, and garnering the only standing ovation of the night.

Seth Williamson produces feature news stories and "Morning Classics" on public radio station WVTF (89.1 FM) in Roanoke.