Diablo Symphony Brings New York City to Walnut Creek in its Jazz Inspired Concert “West Side Story”

The Diablo Symphony brings New York City to the Lesher Center for the Arts on May 19 at 7:30 p.m., with Leonard Bernstein’s “Symphonic Dances from West Side Story” and the first three movements (“I’m Late, I’m Late,” “Her,” and “Pan”) of Eddie Sauter's Focus Suite for strings, percussion, and solo tenor saxophone, featuring the DSO’s own Greg Brown. Described as a "meeting point between jazz and classical music,” the seven-movement suite was composed in 1961 for saxophonist Stan Getz about 15 years after Sauter and Getz met when working in Benny Goodman’s band. Like all the other movements in the suite, each of the three movements being performed has its own unique fairytale-like theme. “I’m Late, I’m Late” was inspired by both Béla Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and the White Rabbit’s song of the same name in Disney’s 1955 movie Alice in Wonderland. The lush second movement, “Her,” was dedicated to the memory of Getz’s mother, and the third movement, “Pan,” evokes images from Greek mythology. Brown, chairman of the music department at Walnut Creek’s Northgate High School before retiring in 2021, received the Paul A. Shaghoian Jazz Educator Award from the California Music Educators Association in 2019. Additionally, the school’s jazz band won first place in the high school big band division at the Next Generation Jazz Festival, sponsored by the Monterey Jazz Festival, for five consecutive years during Brown’s tenure and performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival six times between 2014 and 2019. He has also been codirector and educational consultant for the Big Band of Rossmoor since 2014. Also featured on the program is “Hymn for Everyone” by New York City native Jessie Montgomery. Composed in the spring of 2021, this meditation for orchestra explores various washes of color and timbre while a hymnlike melody—which came suddenly to the composer following a long mountain hike in New Jersey—traverses through different orchestral “choirs” accompanied by other instruments in the ensemble.
          Tickets are available at the Lesher Center for the Arts box office (925-943-7469; 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek) or online through the DSO’s website at https://www.diablosymphony.org. Discounts for youth and groups of 10+ seniors are available; children 12 and under are admitted free of charge to all concerts, although they each need a ticket in order to have a seat. Tickets will also be available at the door.