Dawn Upshaw joins the San Francisco Symphony and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas tonight at Carnegie Hall in an all-Bernstein program for the Hall's Opening Night Gala. After the program's premiere last week at San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall, the San Francisco Chronicle hailed Dawn's performance as "the high point" of the evening, citing her "fizzy, funny and wonderfully evocative rendition" of the aria "What a Movie" from the opera Trouble in Tahiti.

On the program tonight, in addition to that aria, are Symphonic Dances and a song from West Side Story, selections from A Quiet Place, Meditation No. 1 from Mass, Danzón from Fancy Free, and songs from On the Town and Songfest. Joining Dawn and the orchestra are baritone Thomas Hampson, vocalist Christine Ebersole, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and an ensemble selected from the Vocal Arts Department and the Drama Division of The Juilliard School. New York public television station Channel Thirteen / WNET will tape the concert, to be broadcast nationally on PBS's Great Performances October 29.

Tonight's performance launches both Carnegie Hall's 118th season and Bernstein: The Best of all Possible Worlds, the Hall's joint celebration, with the New York Philharmonic, of the 90th anniversary of the composer's birth. Bernstein, ever a citizen of the world, was inextricably linked with New York City, as can be heard in the 1996 Nonesuch recording Leonard Bernstein's New York, featuring contributions from Dawn, Mandy Patinkin, Audra McDonald, Judy Blazer, Richard Muenz, and Donna Murphy. The maestro was named the Philharmonic's music director 50 years ago, after having made his Carnegie Hall debut with the orchestra 15 years before. For more information on the series, visit carnegiehall.org/bernstein.