On one side you have Southern Utah's Southwest Symphony Orchestra, featuring more than 70 musicians from Dixie State College and Washington County.

On the other, you have Richie Ramone, drummer for the seminal punk band the Ramones between 1983 and 1987.

At first glance, you might expect the two sides to clash, but instead the two will join forces May 16 at Springdale's Tanner Amphitheater.

Ramone will perform a 18-minute orchestral arrangement from "West Side Story" that he composed for the drums and orchestra, immediately after the orchestra performs numbers in its "Broadway Under the Stars" concert. "It looks like it will be pretty exciting," said Gary Caldwell, conductor of the orchestra who rehearsed the arrangement Thursday with Ramone and the orchestra.

"For a drummer to drive a 70-piece orchestra is the ultimate," Ramone said in an interview.

After Richie Ramone left the Ramones in 1987, he planned to reinvent himself. After all, one can't be a "drummer in a rock 'n' roll band forever," he said. Always one of the more reclusive Ramones, he had dedicated much of his life to animal activism.

But the classically trained Ramone had been a songwriter for the band -- he penned "Smash You," "Somebody Put Something in My Drink," "Humankind," "I'm Not Jesus," "I Know Better Now" and "(You) Can't Say Anything Nice" -- and in 2007 decided to merge his love for hard-hitting percussion with his love for the second half of "West Side Story." "I'm not going to play 'Music Man,' " Ramone said. "I want to play something hip."

So Ramone arranged a suite, based on Leonard Bernstein's music that includes the drums, and has performed it a half-dozen times with orchestras across the country, including a premiere with the Pasadena Pops in California that drew former Gov. Pete Wilson.

Caldwell will be leading the orchestra in its last of seven concerts of the season, and admitted he had never heard of The Ramones before Ramone was booked. Ramone will close the concert after the orchestra performs selections from "Guys and Dolls," "Fiddler on the Roof," "The Music Man," "Les Misérables," "The Wizard of Oz" and "Oklahoma!"

But Caldwell labeled Ramone as a "phenomenal" drummer and looks forward to conducting the unique arrangement of "West Side Story," which Ramone labeled as "in-your-face."