Superstar violinist Gilles Apap and Caroline Campbell, the Santa Barbara Symphony’s concertmaster, joined forces at the Lobero Theatre on Thursday night for a concert of demanding solo and duet selections.

Campbell and Apap, who served as the symphony’s first violinist before his solo career took flight, originally were scheduled to perform the concert May 7, but the event had to be rescheduled because of the Jesusita Fire. Planned as a fundraiser for the symphony, the concert was a potpourri of virtuoso selections, from J.S. Bach to Dmitri Shostakovich.

The concert served as a showcase for Apap’s whimsical style, as well as an opportunity for Campbell to exhibit her own free spirit. The audience was dressed to the nines, the music was classical, but the two soloists were delightfully offbeat.

Anyone who has seen Apap in action knew what to expect. He ambled onstage, violin in hand, and immediately addressed an usher who was still standing in the aisle. “Are you going to stand up or sit down?” he asked. She immediately sat down.

Then Apap, wearing brown slacks and a flowered shirt, gave a Gallic shrug and said, “I put on pants and a shirt. That’s it.” Shortly after, Campbell strolled out wearing a striking dark gray evening gown — and no shoes. The tall, willowy Campbell cracked, “Gilles said he’d give me 20 bucks if I wouldn’t be taller than him.”

As the two artists began to play, their styles were immediately thrown into contrast. Apap is casual in his approach to the violin, and is so talented and knowledgeable that he appears nonchalant when he plays. Campbell, her red hair in a ponytail, was intense, although talented and knowledgeable as well.

Apap began the program with a toughie, a portion of Bach’s Partita in E Major. Peripatetic as always, he strolled while he played the complex music. After Campbell joined him onstage, the two rippled through pieces by Eugene Ysaӳe, George Frideric Handel, Shostakovich and Moritz Moszkowski. Campbell closed the first half with a brilliant reading of Pablo de Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy.

After the intermission came a violin duet by Gyorgy Ligeti, some brief selections by Bela Bartok and the closing work on the program, Sarasate’s Navarre for Two Violins and Piano, Opus 33. The last piece included accompaniment at the piano by Miwa Gofuku, the symphony’s director of artistic planning and operations.

Gofuku organized the concert, as well as the one planned for May, and provided piano accompaniment for the soloists in several of their selections. She also performed two brief solos, a movement from Frederic Chopin’s Nocturne in C Sharp Minor and Johannes Brahms Intermezzo in A Major, Opus 118.

After the concert, patrons and artists repaired to the Lobero’s patio for a reception. The skies were clear, with neither a cloud nor a puff of smoke in sight.

— Margo Kline covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributor.