“Have you guys seen the movie?” Bradley Cooper cued the crowd during some quick preshow remarks at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall on Wednesday night. After the expected cheers from the audience of stars, cinephiles, and classical-music lovers, the Oscar-nominated Maestro director, star, cowriter, and coproducer—wearing a tux, an enormous smile, and brimming with the energy of the happiest kid at theater camp—presented the evening’s program.

A guide to Hollywood’s biggest races

Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Cooper’s conducting coach for Maestro, also heard quite a bit on the soundtrack) led members of the New York Philharmonic through pretty much every musical cue in the seven-time Oscar-nominated picture. That’s a run-through of a great many excerpts from Leonard Bernstein’s oeuvre, including Broadway works like On the Town and West Side Story, the ballet Fancy Free, operetta Candide, and genre-defiant opus Mass, plus chunks of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 and Robert Schumann’s Manfred. (Sadly, no R.E.M. or Tears for Fears, but we did hear “The Clapping Song,” recorded by Shirley Ellis.) Dialogue from the film was sprinkled throughout, acting almost as a recitative, and a few times the lights fully dimmed for projected clips.

Cooper’s costar and fellow Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan appeared alongside Zachary Booth to sing a light music-hall-style number, and several vocal soloists brought the house down during more complex pieces, especially the 15-year-old Malakai Bayoh recreating his performance of Bernstein’s “Psalm 23.”

It was not the first time Cooper and Maestro were in Geffen Hall together. When Maestro played the New York Film Festival in early October, Cooper was in the audience—but with the SAG-AFTRA strike ongoing, he wasn’t able to take the stage or advertise his presence at all. Clearly that night was on his mind—several times during the Valentine’s Day event Cooper said the evening with Mulligan and Nézet-Séguin at his side took the Maestro journey full circle. With Leonard Bernstein’s three children—Jamie, Alexander, and Nina—in attendance, and accepting bouquets from Cooper, this was the well-heeled victory lap the movie deserved.

A slew of celebs who figured, “Why not spend Valentine’s Day with Bradley Cooper?” attended, including Ellen Burstyn, Spike Lee, Christopher Meloni, Tovah Feldshuh, Sam Smith, Candice Bergen, Gina Gershon, Claes Bang, Celia Weston, Sean Young, Matthew Modine, Victor Garber, Hope Davis, Caroline Aaron, and Anna Wintour. Many, of course, are Oscar voters, who are the targets for these kinds of events in these frenzied days leading up to the start of final Oscar voting on February 22. Few FYC events, however, include the NY Phil.

The program lasted a little over an hour, and Cooper’s introduction implied that someday this show may still hit the road. (It would be a natural at Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts, since one of the clips projected was shot there.)

Slightly disappointing, at least at first, was the realization that Nézet-Séguin would not be leading the NY Phil through the soaring and explosive finale to Mahler’s Resurrection symphony, and that instead we’d watch the big scene as a movie clip. In the moment, though, I recognized this was a smart move; this event was a celebration of the film, after all, and as the essence of the entire drama is packed into these few (mostly) wordless moments, the roving camera examining Bradley-Lenny’s sweat-drenched face as he rides each symphonic wave was more spectacular than ever.

Here’s a little taste of it, as a reminder:

And just in case you never saw the original, here’s Bernstein offering proof that Cooper really isn’t exaggerating this too much.

After a brief break three chairs emerged, as well as those black NY Phil–branded water bottles with bamboo lids that go for 25 bucks at the gift kiosk. (I’ve been meaning to buy one.) Cooper, Mulligan, and Nézet-Séguin then participated in an onstage conversation in which the three of them all complimented one another profusely.

There was a little geeking out about classical music, with Cooper name-dropping “Gustavo” (likely meaning Gustavo Dudamel of the Los Angeles Philharmonic) and Nézet-Séguin shouting out his first Leonard Bernstein CD, a 1983 recording of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 with the Vienna Philharmonic. (Dissent: All of Brahms’s symphonies are sublime, but it’s No. 3 that is the real killer.) Mulligan also admitted that when Cooper asked if she would narrate Bernstein’s Candide with Nézet-Séguin in Philadelphia (a key moment in Maestro’s development) she agreed simply because she wanted the job, but had no clue what it was she would actually be doing. “Well, you are a terrific actress,” Cooper joked, suggesting she seemed well-informed.

Nézet-Séguin, who wore the shiniest patent leather shoes I’ve ever seen (made even more splendid with rhinestones affixed to the soles), compared directing to conducting. Mulligan then compared conducting to directing. Cooper said one of his primary goals in making Maestro was simply to get people to stream Leonard Bernstein and Gustav Mahler on Spotify.

“I love all music. I made a movie about rock musicians,” he said, alluding to A Star Is Born, “but there is nothing that compares to hearing something like [a full symphony orchestra] live.”

“The power of the music is a miracle,” he continued, thanking both the NY Phil and Nézet-Séguin (musical director of the Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra) for granting him access to the world, and Nézet-Séguin for letting him sit “on the field” during so many concerts.

Nézet-Séguin returned the favor by admitting that classical musicians are “not exactly Beyoncé, let alone Taylor Swift” in terms of their visibility. But because of Maestro and his advocacy, he said, “Bradley Cooper is our hero in the world of music.”

With that, Cooper quickly called the evening to a close, because hearing those words he truly looked like he was about to burst into tears.

Maestro is streaming on Netflix, and still playing in a few cinemas here and there, like the Paris Theater in New York City.