The eminent American composer John Adams wrote the concert opener The Rock You Stand On as a gift for Marin Alsop, one of his closest collaborators and The Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal guest conductor. The orchestra and Carnegie Hall are two of the co-commissioners of this energetic new work, the title of which “is not meant to suggest anything other than perhaps hinting at the qualities—loyalty, determination, devotion—that make Marin Alsop so very special to me.”

After winning fame in his early 20s with marvelous songs, hit Broadway shows, and the dazzling Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin was commissioned in 1924 to write a piano concerto. He commented, “Many persons had thought that the Rhapsody was only a happy accident. Well, I went out, for one thing, to show them that there was plenty more where that had come from.” The glittering piece immediately scored another great success for the young composer.

Sergei Prokofiev’s brilliant ballet Romeo and Juliet premiered in 1938, two years after the composer returned to the Soviet Union following nearly two decades living in America and Western Europe. He made three different concert suites for independent orchestral performance, from which we hear a prime selection tonight.