Inside Carnegie Hall’s Opening Night Gala Featuring Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story

World-renowned conductor Daniel Harding took to the stage with an ensemble of highly accomplished musicians—alumni of Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA All-Stars)—to lead selections from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story and Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite (1919 version), while celebrated classical pianist Yuja Wang performed Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

The evening’s festivities began with a lavish cocktail reception in the Rohatyn Room, the banquet space that is adorned with oversized posters of noteworthy concerts—Judy Garland and Isaac Stern among them—that have taken place at Carnegie Hall. Guests in tuxedos and ball gowns rendezvoused in the intimate space and swarmed the buffet tables and sushi stations as chefs turned out endless pieces of sashimi and salmon-avocado rolls. With a plate of food in one hand and the gala’s signature drink—a bright-pink retro cosmo of vodka, elderflower, and Prosecco—in the other, the stylish crowd socialized until an usher moved through striking a xylophone with a mallet to signal that the show was about to start.

At 7 p.m., every seat in the historic Stern Auditorium was filled. Harding—Music Director of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and Conductor Laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra—joined the NYO-USA All-Stars on the Perelman Stage, which was adorned with bouquets of fuchsia and pink dahlias, roses, and clover. The concert began with three recognizable melodies and rhythms from Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, a continuous orchestral suite—with no pauses—that drew on key moments from the musical, including the hopeful “Somewhere,” the dreamlike “Scherzo,” and the jazzy “Mambo.”

Next, Wang graced the legendary stage for Tchaikovsky’s famous Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23, a fiery yet poignant virtuosic showpiece that she performed while simultaneously directing the orchestra from the piano. Playing for an exhilarating 32 minutes straight, she captivated the audience with her technical command and the emotional artistry the piece evokes. The plummeting fanfares and ascending piano chords that open Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto have moved audiences since its 1875 premiere, and Wang’s lively interpretation brimmed with passion, lyricism, and blazing bravura—true to the spirit of the composer’s original.