Oh, what a tight, powerful vocal quartet can do with a superb acoustical space. After three trips to the Holland Performing Arts Center, the Oak Ridge Boys surely have mastered the hall.

As tenor Joe Bonsall proudly reminded the audience Friday night, the legendary country-music foursome was the Holland’s first visiting act, on Oct. 22, 2005. The Boys, who returned for a Christmas-season gig in November 2007, clearly relished the chance to perform this time with the Omaha Symphony — the only group, Bonsall noted, to officially perform in the Peter Kiewit Concert Hall before they did.

“So this is going to be a regular Oak Ridge Boys show, except we have help,” he told the near-capacity audience, which laughed appreciatively. Bonsall, lead singer Duane Allen, longhaired baritone William Lee Golden and super-bass Richard Sterban love singing with symphonies, Bonsall added. “Plus it’s always a thrill to see these highly trained musicians have to play ‘Elvira.’”

Indeed so. But it was an equal thrill for the crowd to hear the Boys sing “Elvira,” their Top 5 crossover hit 30 years ago this summer, and 17 other standards in just about 75 minutes. Outside of country music, the magic of four-part harmony seems to have little place in popular music these days. The Boys remind their listeners what’s missing from the radio waves every time they step onto a stage.

Except for a 1987-96 hiatus by Golden, who first joined the group in 1964, the modern lineup of the Oak Ridge Boys (which traces its roots to the World War II era) has been together since 1973. Their command of their material and their consummate showmanship show what’s possible for four polished vocalists with decades of experience in singing together.

Start with Sterban. Singing groups come and go, Bonsall told the crowd, but “we’re the only ones who have one of THOSE.” People 40 and older in these parts will never forget Sterban’s “oom-pa-pa, oom-pa-pa, MAUW-MAUW” that powered “Elvira” up the pop charts. But Sterban’s solo on the first encore, “This Is America,” was truly stunning. How many other basses can sing that low, that loudly, for that long and be clearly understood?

Golden appears ageless thanks to his trademark white mane, but he still packs an emotional punch leading songs like “Thank God for Kids” (which he ended Friday with “Thank God for grandkids, too”). Allen, who joined the Boys a year after Golden, showed off a crystal-clear lower range on “Mama’s Table” to complement his polished higher notes on songs like “Y’all Come Back Saloon.” And Bonsall’s tenor effortlessly soared above his partners’ voices to form a perfect bookend with Sterban’s rumbles on the low end.

The Boys and their six-piece backup band performed just over half their show with the symphony, which ably enhanced the quartet’s romantic ballads and boosted the power behind up-tempo songs like “Seven Nation Army,” the White Stripes song that provided title track of the Boys’ 2009 album. Resident conductor Ernest Richardson was obviously enjoying himself, and the orchestra’s energy and charisma reflected its leader.

The symphony set the evening’s tone with a 35-minute first half devoted to country standards and Western movie themes. Richardson entered the hall in a nearly all-black casual Western outfit, which he topped with an impressive black cowboy hat as the orchestra opened with John Williams’ overture from the 1972 John Wayne-Bruce Dern classic “The Cowboys.”

The Williams suite, an old friend to the symphony and its listeners, is endlessly compelling. It not only previews sounds from the composer’s best-known movie scores (the prairie theme from “Superman: The Movie” especially comes to mind) but also pays homage to classic Western soundtracks and Aaron Copland regionalist works like “Billy the Kid” and “Rodeo.”

When the symphony presents the trail theme from “The Cowboys,” one clearly sees the endless horizons of the High Plains and feels the tragedy in the murder of rancher-trail boss Wil Andersen (Wayne) before he can see his crew of teenage greenhorns get the herd to market.

The symphony’s deft touch with orchestral pops arrangements also was evident in a suite of other Western movie themes, including the swashbuckling grandeur of “The Magnificent Seven” and the stirring pioneer odes of “How the West Was Won.” A six-song set of country standards seemed less successful, though the blame lies more with arranger Jeff Tyzik’s attempt to make “On the Road Again” and “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” fit into a pleasing orchestral format. “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” and “Wabash Cannonball” were more successfully translated.