Even if you’ve been singing “God Bless America” at the seventh inning stretch during the World Series over the last week, you’d be hard-pressed to find any event more packed with American songs than the Bangor Symphony Orchestra concert Sunday at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono.

Song is the right word, too, since the lineup included George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and selections from Leonard Bernstein’s “On the Town.” These two pieces drip with big American conceits – the jazziness, the brassiness, the swing. Guest conductor Michael Jinbo, the second of five candidates contending this season for the job of music director, pulled bodacious sound from the musicians. Every section was called upon not just for color but for spunk and openness, and while the strings remain the strong suit of this orchestra, it was an abundant day for the percussion, woodwind and brass sections.

Jinbo, who is also music director at the Pierre Monteux School for Conducting and Orchestra Musicians in Hancock, offered “On the Town” as a rousing set of miniatures and as a gift from New York City, where he makes his home. The show tunes were infectiously upbeat and irresistibly cheery. For “Rhapsody in Blue,” pianist Jeffrey Biegel joined the orchestra and gave an accomplished reading that was warm and appealing, and which won him a standing ovation.

As merry as all this was, the certified jewel of this concert was a thrilling performance of Millennium Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra, a stunning contemporary work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Commissioned by a consortium of orchestras, this melting pot of American moods was first presented last year in Cincinnati with Biegel at the piano. The opportunity to hear him premiere it in Maine was truly fortuitous.

Zwilich’s two-movement score is an odyssey of sound that explores urban, mystical, modern and romantic themes in an expansive sweep through expressive idioms. There were shards of melody that were every bit as complex and deeply rooted in a national identity as Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” which also was included in the program and was a fascinating complement to Zwilich’s substantial artistic feat.

Whereas the BSO performance of the Copland vacillated between lugubrious and lyrical, the Zwilich was fresh and sharp, spooky and tender, bold and immense. In both pieces, however,

Jinbo coaxed instrumental voices into the foreground, and although some in the audience may have been looking for more full-bodied choices, Jinbo provided gentle, controlled placements throughout the concert.

After all that pleasantry, however, it’s tempting to want to see the maestro unleash and get a little crazy – say with Beethoven or Mahler. Concertgoers may rightly feel the word “pop” rather than “classical” is the best way to describe Sunday’s concert. But any way you look at it, the pairings of American songs were nationally fitting and rhythmically provocative.