Hawaii audiences, perhaps more than most places, truly value a “coming home” event, when a popular performer who’s been away comes back. When conductor/arranger/performer Matt Catingub takes the podium Friday to lead the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra, the feeling will be mutual.

“I very much appreciate them asking me back,” he said in a phone call from his home in Las Vegas. “Those are all my friends, all the musicians and even some of the staff.”

Catingub directed the now defunct Honolulu Symphony’s pops series for over a decade, creating arrangements for local musicians like Cecilio & Kapono, Jimmy Borges and Raiatea Helm. His legacy here, which began when he was a youngster performing with his mother, jazz singer Mavis Rivers, is such that when that symphony went bankrupt, one of the musicians’ biggest fears was the loss of those arrangements. At the time, the pops concerts were some of the symphony’s most popular events, unique among orchestras nationwide, Catingub said.

“That whole time when it was the Honolulu Symphony, and the Pops was as successful as it was, there was nothing else like it in the country,” he said.

Catingub has been able to replicate that success elsewhere. Six years ago he co-founded the Macon Pops in Macon, Ga., drawing on the city’s rich musical heritage, which includes favorite sons Otis Redding, Little Richard, the Allman Brothers and others.

“It’s really kind of a mini-Nashville.” Catingub said. “We have done the Otis Redding show … and Chuck Leavell, who’s from Macon and who’s been the Rolling Stones’ keyboardist for like the past 40 years, we had him play with us.”

At about the same time, Catingub started the Hawaii Pops series, which was an attempt to continue the pops series at a time when the continued existence of a professional symphony in Hawaii was in jeopardy. Both Macon and Hawaii Pops series featured a dinner-show/dancing atmosphere, a concept that Catingub sees as potentially the future of pops concerts. While the Hawaii Pops folded after a couple of seasons, the format has proved popular in Macon, drawing a a broad demographic of fans dancing in the concert hall.

“One of the things I love is how people will go to a concert and they’ll go, ‘Did you see how great that concert was?’ Those are the words they’ll use,” he said. “People want to hear the music, but they want to see something with it.”

Catingub’s ties to Hawaii and the Pacific are strong, though he was born and raised in Los Angeles. He has family here, and Catingub is Polynesian, of Samoan ancestry.

He’s actually had a formal title bestowed upon him by a Samoan chief.

“Officially, another Samoan is supposed to address me by my chief’s title. That’s all I know,” he said with a laugh.

His first public performance was at the Waikiki Shell, when, as a teenager, his mother had him lead her band.

“I still see a lot of those musicians. Gabe Baltazar was playing lead saxophone, and Don Hutchinson was playing baritone sax,” he said. “A lot of guys that I still see to this day remember me — when they sat there and watched this pimple-faced 15-year-old kid come up and conduct at the Waikiki Shell.”

While both of his parents were musicians – his father played bass – Catingub is “95 percent self-taught,” he said, with no formal music training save for a few lessons on clarinet.

He taught himself piano and saxophone, and sings, while his composing and arranging skills come mostly from listening to recordings by his mother, orchestrated by the likes of Nelson Riddle and other great bandleaders of the day.

His first tunes, written for his high school jazz band, were the results of self-motivation and trial and error.

“It sounded terrible, and then I wrote a second one and it sounded OK, and then I wrote a third one and said, ‘OK, do that and don’t do that,’” he said. “By the time I was a senior in high school, I was writing arrangements for my mom.

“People ask me, ‘What school did you go to?’ and I say, ‘The old school.’”

Catingub has conducted pops orchestras all over the world. In addition to his orchestra in Macon, he leads pops organizations in Glendale, Calif., and New Hampshire.

His versatility and talent have earned him the opportunity to conduct for artists such as Diana Krall, Yes, Al Jarreau, Gladys Knight and Kenny Rogers, and he’s arranged tunes for Rosemary Clooney, Kenny Loggins, Boz Scaggs, the Righteous Brothers, Vertical Horizon, Natalie Cole and Pat Benatar.

He won a Grammy for his work on the soundtrack of the 2005 film “Good Night and Good Luck,” directed by George Clooney, Rosemary Clooney’s nephew.

“If there’s anything I’ve learned over the decades, it’s how to make anything work with an orchestra,” he said.

For his performance here with the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra, he will lead a concert titled “Latin Pop Revolution,” featuring the music of Latino artists like Gloria Estefan, Ricky Martin, Santana and Sergio Mendes.

“We’re covering every decade since the ’40s until now,” said Catingub, who will be joined by drummer/singer Steve Moretti, a colleague from Macon, and local singer Christina Souza. “Her heritage is perfect and so is her voice,” Catingub said.

While the resurrected symphony has had success with pops concerts featuring movie music, rock tributes and even circus acts, Catingub would be game for trying to re-establish a pops series here using the dinner/dancing concept. Back in the day, he even inquired about removing seats at Blaisdell Concert Hall to create a dance floor.

“I think it would be a viable concept,” he said. “I heard you can bring booze into the Blaisdell now. The more you drink, the better we sound.”