BERNSTEIN, COPLAND & MARSALIS IN AMERICAN SOUNDSCAPES
The Way of Water, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Encanto, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Nope, Creed III, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, Sinners, Tenet, American Dad!, Turning Red, Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett, League of Legends, and the Oscar- and GRAMMY Award-winning Oppenheimer soundtrack.
David Kaplan
David Kaplan is a New York-born piano soloist and chamber musician, praised by The Boston Globe for“ grace and fire” at the keyboard. He has performed concerti at London’ s Barbican, Berlin’ s Philharmonie, and most recently with the Symphony Orchestras of Hawaii and San Antonio. His recording of Valerie Coleman’ s“ Revelry” was nominated for a 2025 GRAMMY Award, and his 2024
David Kaplan
solo debut,“ New Dances of the League of David,” was lauded by Financial Times, Gramophone, Fanfare, and more. His recital programs artfully connecting new and old music have been praised for“ striking imagination and creativity” by The New York Times, and have brought him to the Ravinia Festival, Washington’ s National Gallery, and New York’ s Carnegie and Merkin Halls. Kaplan is a passionate advocate for contemporary American composers— he has commissioned new
Anna Azarov works from Timo Andres, Christopher Cerrone, Anthony Cheung, Donnacha Dennehy, Caroline Shaw, Augusta Read Thomas, and many others. Kaplan’ s numerous collaborators include Tessa Lark, Colin Carr, and the Ariel, Attacca, Formosa, and Tesla String Quartets, as well as his father, violinist Mark Kaplan, with whom he releases a recording of the three Brahms Sonatas on Orchid Classics in 2026. He has performed at the La Jolla SummerFest, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and is a founding member of Decoda, the affiliate ensemble of Carnegie Hall. Kaplan is the Associate Professor and Inaugural Shapiro Family Chair in Piano Performance at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Away from the keyboard, he loves cartooning and cooking, and is mildly obsessed with classic cars.
David Kaplan is represented worldwide by BLU OCEAN ARTS.
NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
By Paula Maust
Leonard Bernstein
Born August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts Died October 14, 1990, in New York City
OVERTURE TO WEST SIDE STORY [ 1957, arr. 1965 ]
In the mid 1950s, Leonard Bernstein( composer), Stephen Sondheim( lyricist), and Arthur Laurents( author) collaborated to create the hit Broadway musical West Side Story. The show ran for an impressive 732 performances before going on tour and has been performed extensively since its 1957 premiere. A mid-century retelling of Shakespeare’ s Romeo and Juliet, the musical is set in Manhattan’ s Upper West Side where the Jets and Sharks are competing for control of the neighborhood. These two rival gangs are made up of teenagers from different ethnic groups— the Jets are white, and the Sharks are Puerto Rican. Conflict arises when Tony, a former Jet, falls in love with Maria, the sister of the Sharks’ leader. The music is vibrant, with grooving dance tunes, exquisite love songs, and intense portrayals of strife, all of which we get excerpts of in the overture.
Instrumentation: Two flutes( second doubling piccolo), two oboes( second doubling English horn), two clarinets( second doubling bass clarinet and E-flat clarinet), two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cowbell, cymbals( pair), glockenspiel, side drum, xylophone, bongo drums, chimes, drum set, guiro, maracas, vibraphone, harp, piano, and strings.
Aaron Copland
Born November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn, New York Died December 2, 1990, in North Tarrytown, New York
PIANO CONCERTO [ 1926 ] When he wrote his Piano Concerto in
1926, the young American composer Aaron Copland had just returned to New York City after studying with Nadia Boulanger in France. The Concerto’ s premiere by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1927 caused a scene— audience members hissed, and some even walked out during the performance. Critics were harsh, saying the Concerto had“ a shocking lack of taste” and that the piece made them feel like they were in“ a dance hall next to a poultry yard.” The reception in New York the next month was similar— 1920s American audiences were clearly not ready for Copland’ s jazz-inspired modernist twist on orchestral music. Leonard Bernstein revived the piece several decades later, however, and mid-century audiences nostalgically referred to it as a delightful artifact from the Roaring Twenties.
Copland’ s orchestration for the Piano Concerto is ambitious, calling for strings, percussion, celesta, brass, and a full complement of woodwinds including saxophones. The solo piano part was performed by Copland, who later recalled
JAN-FEB 2026 | OVERTURE | 15