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  • What I remember most about the Young People's Concerts was not necessarily

  • what the Orchestra was playing, although I vividly remember "The Planets,"

  • Holst's "The Planets." But what I remember most is Leonard Bernstein's voice, and his

  • passion, and how much he loved what he was telling the audience.

  • When I first started in the Orchestra

  • Leonard Bernstein started guest conducting, and

  • we went on tour. Before we left on that tour we were playing the Tchaikovsky Sixth [Symphony].

  • During the rehearsal he wanted some more sound, and he was surprised. He

  • thought he was gonna get more sound, so he says, "Come on, you hunky brutes!"

  • And the whole Orchestra laughed at us, and so we laughed, and we could

  • hardly play after that, because, you know, he called us "hunky brutes." Anyway, when we

  • finally went out to Los Angeles, our trombone section was walking around,

  • and they said, you know, let's give Leonard Bernstein a gift.

  • And we did the whole tour, came back to Philharmonic Hall,

  • having been in Los Angeles, San Francisco,

  • Chicago... We came back and recorded the "Pathetique," and they showed up and,

  • as a chorus line, all the trombones and tuba with this t-shirt.

  • Any time we perform Maestro Bernstein's music, it feels like there's an essence

  • of New York in it. It feels like it was written for this Orchestra and the

  • Orchestra somehow just magically knows how to play it.

  • It's the sound that comes through.

  • It's the articulation. It's the mood of it. It's all, I think, about this

  • Orchestra, and it's just always very exhilarating.

  • Still, when we play the "Candide" Overture

  • that he wrote, or the Symphonic Dances from "West Side Story,"

  • it's like you think he's in the room with you. You can feel that kind of

  • shoulder gesture or the chin bobbing, no matter who's conducting.

  • This Orchestra plays that music the way it was taught to them by the composer.

  • It's an amazing thing.

  • I think Lenny's spirit is always with our Orchestra.

  • Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic

  • are synonymous in some ways.

What I remember most about the Young People's Concerts was not necessarily

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