(Click here to read more about the rest of Tuesday night's program.)

In 1985, just before Rod Harkins put together the first West Side Story show for The Pride's 1985 Texas show, this groundbreaking musical's composer decided it was time for him to conduct a definitive recording of the music.

The resulting recording (also available for purchase on if you want to hear it right now) is often called "the operatic version" because the roles were performed by the world's leading opera singers: José Carreras as Tony, Kiri Te Kanawa as Maria, Kurt Ollmann as Riff, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, and the composer's own children as the dialogue voices for Tony and Maria. The dialogue substitutions were because the operatic singers, especially Carreras, had significant non-New York-gang accents. Indeed, while the performances are brilliant, it's hard to believe that any of the singers have ever been on a street, much less in a street gang.

It's a masterpiece, in part because the music is all Bernstein. He conducted it, and as the "making of" documentary showed, he didn't hesitate to be a bastard about what he wanted. There were no cuts in the music for staging, no tempos reduced to accommodate singers or musicians—just the brilliant, riveting music (and lyrics) of the show as the maestro intended them.

Even without lyrics, the music is powerful—possibly explaining why The Pride has been called back to this show in every decade since its 1985 debut, most recently in 2007 for the Broadway musical's 50th anniversary. While I'm the first to advocate for the power and clarity of the modern marching ensemble, a symphonic group still has more colors available to it—the ability to hear a solo clarinet, the flexibility to use Bernstein's demanding changes in time signature (and the original key signatures, which lean heavily towards sharps because they're more natural for string players), and little details like oboes and multiple horn parts.

In 1961, to make West Side Story available to symphony orchestras, and not just musical theater, Bernstein created Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, a 24-minute suite of orchestral music faithful to the original Broadway score. It includes not just the moments you'd expect from having seen the musical (Somewhere, Cool), but also the most dynamic parts of the score (Mambo! as well as the Prologue, the quiet Finale, and the Rumble [molto allegro]).

Earlier this year, PBS's Live from Lincoln Center presented a concert in honor of Bernstein's 90th birthday, and it opened with the Symphonic Dances. It was amazing—every fantastic moment from the score, just like the original, but pure music without other distractions. I was an instant fan, and if you'd heard it, you would have been as well.

The 50th anniversary of the musical also inspired renowned band arranger Paul Lavender to revisit the Symphonic Dances for the modern wind ensemble: three flute parts (one doubling piccolo), two oboes (two parts, that is), one English horn, two bassoons, one contraboassoon, E♭ clarinet, three B♭ clarinets, bass clarinet, two E♭ alto saxophones, tenor sax, baritone sax, three B♭ trumpets, four horn parts, three trombones, euphonium, tuba, string bass, and five percussion parts not including separate timpani, harp, and piano. (This turns out to be remarkably similar to the original, adding more harmony saxophones and additional flute and clarinet parts to help deal with the absence of all strings except for the string bass.) It's in the original keys, just like the orchestral version.

And in case the image to the left hadn't filled you in, the University of Oklahoma Wind Symphony presents Symphonic Dances from West Side Story in concert this Tuesday night, April 21, at 8:00 PM, on the stage of Sharp Hall in Catlett Music Center. This is a monster work, challenging even to the professional musicians who performed it on Broadway and for the operatic version under the composer's baton. That's why it's the final piece on Tuesday night's program—it's really hard to top.

Although West Side Story is great, the program Tuesday night is more diverse, starting with Emmanual Chabrier's Marche Joyeuse, a "joyous, even comical" piece from 1888 that doesn't take itself too seriously, one whose name wasn't even settled for a few years after its premiere.

Russell Pettit, whom many alumni met at Homecoming in 2007 and 2008, donducts Carter Pann's 2008 work Hold This Boy and Listen, an "unusually soft and subdued song for band" written for the composer's nephew, "a lyrical work where the melodies and harmonies return." Pann's pieces have been regular features of Wind Symphony programs in the past few years, including Slalom andFour Factories, largely because both the players and the audiences love them. I'm looking forward to hearing this work.

"New music" doesn't get much newer than rising young composer Kathryn Salfelder. She has already won the 2008 ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prize, the Ithaca College Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize, the presentation of Cathedrals at the Virginia CBDNA Symposium 34 for New Band Music, an Encore Grant from the American Composers Forum, and took first place in the Charles B. Olsen Composition Competition—and she was born in 1987!

She won the Beeler Prize for Cathedrals, a 2007 fantasy on Gabrieli's Canzona Primi Toni structured upon the golden ratio (φ) as well as on Renaissance motifs and masses. Salfelder is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in composition at the New England Conservatory of Music. You can listen to Cathedrals ahead of Tuesday night's performance on her Web site.

Debra Traficante conducts Morten Lauriden's 1994 O Magnum Mysterium (transcribed by H. Robert Reynolds) to conclude the first portion of the program. Wikipedia, which knows all, says:

O Magnum Mysterium is a responsorial chant from the Matins of Christmas. A number of composers have reworked the chant into a contemporaneous setting; the settings by Byrd, Victoria, Gabrieli, Palestrina, Poulenc, La Rocca, Harbison, Sinigaglio, and Lauridsen are particularly notable.

That last one is the piece in question. The composer, a 2007 recipient of the National Arts Medal, wrote the piece for choral ensemble, but calls Reynolds' adaptation for symphonic winds "stunning"—high praise from a composer whose works are "runaway best-sellers."

All that plus Symphonic Dances from West Side Story in a single concert! So mark your calendars for Tuesday night. If you played West Side Story, or even if you just like it, you'll want to hear this in person. It's a Sutton Series Concert, with tickets available at the Catlett box office or via F.A.C.T.S. Click on the poster at the left to download your own printable PDF poster to decorate your office or other place where music lovers gather.

And if you can't make it, click here at 8:00 PM CDT on April 21 to hear the live stream of the concert right on your very own computer! It's not going to be the same as being there, but if you're far from Norman, it's a taste of OU Music right on your desktop. If you're near Norman, we'll see you at Catlett!