It's been 23 years since Holliday's star-making turn in ''Dreamgirls" took her from a Houston Baptist church to Broadway, winning her Tony and Grammy awards along the way. Looking terrific in a sequined purple gown, Holliday largely delivered the goods with remarkable power and fervor.
Not everything came off successfully. The setting of Psalm 23 from Duke Ellington's ''Black, Brown and Beige" suite was closer to melodramatic pulpit reading than singing. And notwithstanding the genuine feeling behind it, her Tina Turner-style assault on ''Amazing Grace" overpowered the hymn's gentle innocence.
Yet when Holliday cut loose in Richard Smallwood's ''Hold On, Don't Let Go" and Smokie Norful's ''I Need You Now," her full-throttle vocalism and spiritual intensity converted Symphony Hall to a storefront Baptist church. With crystalline diction, Holliday deployed a staggering range of color and dynamics, from hushed plea to deep contralto growl and proscenium-rattling gospel screams, filling the room with volume and pulsating energy.
The Boston Pops Gospel Choir brought equally sassy and uninhibited passion to its set, enlivened by high-flying solo turns by Ayeesha Lane, Katani Sumner, and Ida Kamrara.
Providing simple or no accompaniment for most of the vocal numbers, the Pops had more to do in the opening orchestral section. Scott Hiltzik's ''Summer's Unfolding" mines an attractive vein of gracious pastoralism, and the Pops winds gave the requisite lilt to their solo opportunities. Hiltzik's ''Touch the Stars" offered gentle contrast with a rhapsodic Celtic canter, and both works received polished readings under Floyd's efficient direction.
The evening led off with the spirited, fanfare-driven finale of Adolphus Hailstork's First Symphony. The ensuing silver-screen opulence of Ernest Gold's main theme from the film ''Exodus" was delivered with majestic brass playing by the Pops.
