The last time the Cleveland Orchestra performed in the Triangle was 20 years ago almost to the month. The visit occurred at the tail end of a wonderful era in which area music lovers could routinely hear all the great orchestras of America and the world without leaving home.

From the 1930s through the 1980s, concerts by touring orchestras were a staple of the Duke Artist Series and N.C. State's Friends of the College, with UNC's Performing Arts Series sponsoring a few as well. It was common to see the great American orchestras -- the Philadelphia, the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony -- as well as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris. The Cleveland performed three times in Durham during the '40s and five times in Raleigh from 1961 to 1987.

By the late '80s, the economics of transporting dozens of musicians and their instruments around the country had become prohibitive, forcing large orchestras to halt most long-term touring. This in turn caused many presenting organizations to downsize or cease altogether. The Friends of the College ended in 1994 for lack of big touring attractions, including full orchestras.

The Cleveland's return for a concert tonight in Chapel Hill reminds us what we've missed.

Known from its live performances, national radio broadcasts and recordings, the Cleveland has long been heralded as one of the "Big Five" American orchestras. With a roster of 100 musicians, the orchestra recently signed to the Deutsche Grammophon label, which will release a recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as it was performed in January with music director Franz Welser-Most conducting.

Like other major orchestras, the Cleveland has confined its travels to world music capitals in recent years, with longstanding residencies in New York, Vienna and Lucerne, Switzerland. Now the Ohio orchestra has added Miami to its itinerary, with North Carolina also benefiting.

Miami opened the grand Carnival Center for the Performing Arts in 2006 but had no world-class orchestra to call it home. The Cleveland signed on to a three-week winter residency for the center's first 10 years. With the musicians traveling by bus and the instruments by truck, there's just enough time for a "tour" concert coming and going, says executive director Gary Hanson.

In this first season of the Miami run, North Carolina has lucked out twice. In January, the orchestra stopped in Asheville, where Welser-Most led a program of works by Golijov, Ginastera and Mahler, the same program performed the night before in Miami.

Tonight, guest conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya leads more mainstream works by Tchaikovsky ("Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasia"), Falla (Suite from "The Three-Cornered Hat") and Rimsky-Korsakov ("Scheherazade"). Harth-Bedoya conducted a similar program in Cleveland and Miami; the Rimsky-Korsakov substitutes for Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 because the piano soloist was not available for the Chapel Hill date.

Peruvian-born Harth-Bedoya is one of the most highly touted young conductors around. He came to the United States in 1987 at age 19 to study at the Curtis Institute and then the Juilliard School. After graduating, he quickly found assistant and associate posts at the New York and the Los Angeles Philharmonics and is now the music director for the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in Texas.

Since the Cleveland's last visit, the Triangle has seen only a handful of large orchestras, mostly from Eastern European and former Soviet countries. The recent residency by the National Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Slatkin was the result of a one-time grant.

The N.C. Symphony has made great strides under music director Grant Llewellyn, filling some of the gap left when orchestras cut back on touring. But experiencing an orchestra influenced by years with top-flight conductors, with a deep knowledge of repertory and a full complement of players, makes tonight's concert a must-hear for live-music aficionados.