Symphonic Dances New York Performances

First heard in New York when the New York Philharmonic premiered it at Carnegie Hall in 1961, *Symphonic Dances from West Side Story* reshapes Leonard Bernstein’s stage score into a nine-movement orchestral suite. It compresses the musical’s street tensions, lyric interludes, and Latin-inflected rhythms into symphonic form, written for a large orchestra. At David Geffen Hall, Santtu-Matias Rouvali leads the New York Philharmonic in a program that also includes Leonidas Kavakos. The suite’s durability comes from its clean dramatic pacing rather than narrative detail.