from PRX.

This is Studio 360.

I'm Kurti Anderson.

Even if you're not a big musical theater person, chances are you can't help snapping along to this.

When you're a jet, you're the top man in town, you're the gold medal kid with a heavyweight ground.

When you're a jet, you're the swing in his thing, little boy, you're a man, little man, you're a gig.

The jets are in.

West Side Story is certainly Leonard Bernstein's best-known work,

and it is definitely the first album I played as a little kid over and over and over again.

He died in 1990, and this year he would have been 100 years old.

It was his role for years as the conductor of the New York Philharmonic that really helped change

the way American audiences understood classical music.

Here, five musicians from the Philharmonic remember what it was like to play for Leonard Bernstein.

I remember when the first year I was in the orchestra, we toured Europe, played in Venice,

and Lenny arrived at the concert in a gondola,

standing up in his tails with a phenomenal cape with a redlining.

He was very short, you know, but he looked so tall.

One would always think, at least I thought, he must have been like five feet taller.

The strength and the understanding of the music were just incredible.

To see the show that went on before he even got on the podium was amazing to see all the

recognition of different people that he knew

from the past and, you know, hugging and kissing.

...