Carnegie Hall Explores WEST SIDE STORY with Interactive SOMEWHERE PROJECT

In celebration of Carnegie Hall's 125th anniversary season, the Weill Music Institute (WMI) launches THE SOMEWHERE PROJECT, a citywide exploration of WEST SIDE STORY. This unique creative learning project will engage people through events in all five boroughs of New York City, anchored by a large-scale production of WEST SIDE STORY. Click here to experience the interactive course!

In March 2016, three performances of this iconic work with music by Leonard Bernstein will take place at the Knockdown Center, a restored factory in Queens, and feature professional artists in lead roles and Jerome Robbins's classic choreography, with students and community members from around the city on stage. Marin Alsop, a former protégée of Bernstein's and a visionary leader of education projects, will conduct and Amanda Dehnert, a nationally renowned theater director, will lead the production.

Experiencing WEST SIDE STORY as a celebration of community and music will encourage artists and audiences to consider the work's timeless themes, inviting them to embrace the vision of New York City as a "place for us."

"WEST SIDE STORY is not only filled with great music, it is also about us, about New York City," said Sarah Johnson, director of Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute. "We are excited to invite young people and community members to explore this extraordinary piece, which carries such timeless and relevant themes: love, conflict, and attempting to find ways of living together in this diverse and complex city."

Throughout the 2015-2016 season, WMI will also support the creation of new works by students and community members, each inspired by "Somewhere," the classic song that forms the affirmative core of WEST SIDE STORY. This original music, created by participants in WMI programs and workshops, will be featured in free Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concerts in all five boroughs. In addition, arts organizations and other city partners will be invited to join the conversation. Further details about THE SOMEWHERE PROJECT will be announced later this year.

Inspired by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the beloved American theater classic WEST SIDE STORY resonates as strongly today as it did when it was written in 1957. Bernstein's collaboration with choreographer Jerome Robbins, writer Arthur Laurents, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim produced a timeless tale of rival street gangs and forbidden love in 1950s New York with music that has been performed and recorded by major orchestras and artists around the world, also inspiring an Academy Award-winning motion picture in 1961.

THE SOMEWHERE PROJECT is the latest in a series of WMI creative learning projects designed to bring New York City students and world-class artists together for musical exploration as they prepare to perform a major work. Past projects have centered on Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (2007, in partnership with the Berliner Philharmoniker Education Project); Orff's Carmina Burana (2012); Osvaldo Golijov's La Pasio?n segu?n San Marcos (2013); and Ellington's Sacred Music (2014, in partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center). Marin Alsop has led two previous WMI creative learning projects, exploring Bernstein's Mass (2008) and Too Hot to Handel, a gospel-influenced re-invention of Handel's Messiah (2010).

IF YOU GO:

WEST SIDE STORY
Friday, March 4 at 8 PM
Saturday, March 5 at 8 PM
Sunday, March 6 at 3 PM
Knockdown Center, 52-19 Flushing Avenue, Queens

Based on a Conception of JEROME ROBBINS
Book by ARTHUR LAURENTS
Music by LEONARD BERNSTEIN
Lyrics by STEPHEN SONDHEIM
Entire Original Production Directed and Choreographed by JEROME ROBBINS

Amanda Dehnert, Director
Marin Alsop, Music Director