For New York For New York For New York (Variations on Themes of Leonard Bernstein) (originally titled To Lenny! To Lenny!) is a one-movement orchestral composition by the American composer John Williams. Written as a tribute to fellow composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, the piece premiered on the last day of Bernstein's 70th birthday gala at Tanglewood on August 28, 1988. The premiere was performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Williams, who was then conductor of its sister orchestra, the Boston Pops. Music critic John Rockwell of "The New York Times" described the work as "feathery and flashy." "For New York" utilizes
Tanglewood Festival Chorus the Ninth as the closing concert of the Tanglewood season that summer and expressed a preference to conduct it at Symphony Hall rather than Beethoven's Fifth Symphony which Steinberg had been scheduled to conduct. In December 1994 the chorus joined Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra for tour performances in Hong Kong and Japan, the chorus' first performance overseas. In February 1998, singing from the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations, the chorus represented the Americas when Seiji Ozawa led the Winter Olympics Orchestra with six choruses on five continents, all linked by satellite, in the "Ode to