Live Performance Report: 'West Side Story' By Leonard Bernstein

For my live performance report, I saw “Bernstein's West Side Story” at the San Francisco Symphony on Friday, September 22. The chorus was made up of male and female singers ranging from bases to sopranos. Some of those singers were professionals; others were volunteers. There were also instrumentalists including trombonists, percussionists, and cellists. The music was composed by Leonard Bernstein, one of the most famous composers of the 20th century. Leonard Bernstein was born in 1918 and died in 1990. Based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Leonard Bernstein set out to write one of his most well known works: “West Side Story”. “West Side Story” is a musical about a couple that was kept apart because of their families who were rival gangs. It was first seen

on broadway in 1957. It later took over a different platform when it was made into a movie in 1961. Leonard Bernstein’s work is different from other composers in which his work cannot be classified into one style. This is shown in “West Side Story”, whose genre is debatable. It was branded as classical but the music in no way resembled an opera. Instead, it’s music was composed in an intricate way which could be defined as nothing other than classical.
I enjoyed all of the singing, but what affected me the most in the performance was when two soloist singers, Isabel Leonard and Ryan Mckenney got onstage and sang a duet. They were both fantastic singers and one could tell that they were very passionate about what they were doing. They made the audience want to get up and sing too. They inspired me to sing more and helped inforce my fantasy of becoming a singer. I want to go into a profession that involves music, whether it’s being a singer myself or teaching others, and seeing how much fun they were having really solidifies that. Any time I see soloists performing I get inspired.
A particular musical moment that made the greatest impression on me was when all of the chorus sang together for the first time in harmony. The orchestra was playing a piece entitled “Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs” and, when one would least expect, the singers loudly come together with a polyphonic texture to tremendously add to the music. The rhythm along with the melody of the piece allowed the listeners to get lost in the music.
The San Francisco Symphony has more volunteers than professionals.

In other other words, the chorus wasn’t as good as a professional chorus would be. However, the chorus had a loud sound and could carry a tune which are great qualities for a chorus. On the other hand, the two professional soloists that I mentioned earlier were phenomenal and great performers. They had strong voices that harmonized very well and showed their emotions on their faces as well. Their only weakness was that they weren’t very professional and broke character a few times which would bring the audience out of the setting created by their facial expressions and tone of voice. The orchestra was great. They could obviously read their music because no mistakes were heard by the audience. Nonetheless, their stage was cluttered and visually unappealing. The performers from both the orchestra and choir reminded me of the orchestra and chamber choir at Piedmont Highschool. The choir and orchestra are definitely better than Piedmont due to age and experience, but both Piedmont and the Symphony dive into the music instead of slowly easing into it. Overall, listeners should be pleased by the performance that the “San Francisco Symphony” put

on.
“The San Francisco Symphony” showed a variety of Leonard Bernstein's work. Because of this, Bernstein was trying to communicate various different ideas in each piece due to the fact that none of them were connected. The most important piece of the night, “Symphonic Dances from West Side Story” was composed using loud instruments and fast paced rhythms to try to convey the exciting feeling of young love and rebellion against the conservative society in which they lived. Through the music one might feel as though they are young in love themselves.