Sentence:  Evegeni Dubovskoi conducted an exceptionally large orchestra , one containing excellent soloists - the violin solos by the concertmaster , Guy Lumia , <WSD>were</WSD> especially fine - but one in which the core of traveling players and the body of men added locally had not had time to achieve much unity . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)