Carnegie Hall opens its 118th season on September 24 with Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas leading the San Francisco Symphony in an all-Leonard Bernstein program in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage that launches Bernstein: The Best of All Possible Worlds, a citywide festival celebrating the 90th anniversary of Bernstein’s birth and the 50th anniversary of his appointment as New York Philharmonic Music Director.

The concert, which begins at 7:00 p.m. features soprano Dawn Upshaw, baritone Thomas Hampson, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and Michael Tilson Thomas, who all worked with and learned from Leonard Bernstein, and will be joined by vocalist Christine Ebersole on a program that features music from a wide variety of Bernstein’s stage works—from such early triumphs as West Side Story and On the Town to later works, Mass and A Quiet Place. Thirteen/WNET New York will record the concert for broadcast on Great Performances on PBS, October 29 at 9:00 p.m.*, extending the reach of the Bernstein festival to a national audience. (*Check local listings.)

The Opening Night Gala of Carnegie Hall’s 118th Season is chaired by Suzie and Bruce Kovner and co-chaired by Mercedes and Sid Bass. The gala sponsor is PricewaterhouseCoopers with major support for the Opening Night Gala Broadcast by S. Donald Sussman.

The benefit includes a gala dinner at The Waldorf=Astoria’s Grand Ballroom following the concert. Gala benefit tickets, priced at $5000, $2500, and $1250, include concert seating and the post-concert dinner; those priced at $650 include the concert and a pre-concert cocktail reception at 5:30 p.m. in Carnegie Hall’s Rohatyn Room. All gala benefit tickets are available by calling 212-903-9679 or online at www.carnegiehall.org/specialevents.