Music from the Upper West Side

I am looking out at the New York skyline as I record this episode and in the distance in particular I can glimpse the Ansonia Building. Completed in 1904 as an apartment hotel, it was for the early decades of the 20^th century popular with visiting European composer/performers who would supplement their income with concert tours of the USA. In particular Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky both stayed at the Ansonia… with Stravinsky becoming a frequent resident for over a decade. Researching that building's connection to classical music, I discovered that a narrow stretch of New York's Upper West Side around the Ansonia had also featured in the lives of the composers George Gershwin, Gustav Mahler, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. So, today you're going to hear music connected to the Upper West Side. Some West Side Stories, if you will.