LEONARD BERNSTEIN!

The MUSIC DEPARTMENT THEME for 2018-2019 school year is "LEONARD BERNSTEIN at 100."

This celebrates that Leonard Bernstein was born 100 years ago! He is one of the most important American conductors, composers, and pianists! He was also a well-known educator who taught millions of people about all aspects of music through his TV show on CBS.

Some facts about Leonard Bernstein that students have learned in music classes:

• Leonard Bernstein lived from 1918-1990.
• He was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts. His parents were immigrants from the Ukraine.
• Leonard's dad sold wigs and beauty supplies and wanted his son to go into the 'family business.'
• When Lenny was 10, his Aunt Clara moved away and left all of her big furniture at Lenny's family's house. That included a big old upright piano that was very out of tune! Lenny fell in love with the piano from the first note he played! He started piano lessons almost immediately, but soon he was better than his teacher and moved on to another teacher. This happened a couple of times.
• Lenny became very good at the piano.
• As a child, he frequently went to the Boston Symphony concerts.
• He attended Boston Latin School, a public high school. Students have to take a test to get into that school. While there, he played piano in the orchestra. He also played in clubs and was always found at the piano when he attended parties!
• He went to college at Harvard University, where he majored in music and sang in the Glee Club.
• Then he went to Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia for his master's degree. He was the only student to ever get a grade of an 'A' from the conducting teacher there.
• After leaving Curtis Institute, he got a job as Assistant Conductor of The New York Philharmonic in NY City. This job was notoriously a bad job, since conductors never get sick, and he knew he would probably never get to conduct a concert. However, he was always prepared 'just in case' he had to conduct a concert. On a Sunday in 1943, when he was just 25, he got a call that he needed to conduct the concert that afternoon because the main conductor, Bruno Walter, was sick. Lenny went on that day and was an immediate success. Some people even said that he was better than Bruno Walter! His picture was on the front page of all of the newspapers the next morning!
• Lenny was a famous composer, as well, and wrote music for WEST SIDE STORY, ON THE TOWN, FANCY FREE (ballet), CANDIDE (opera).
• Some of his compositions:
• Piano Trio - for piano, violin, cello - written at age 19
• West Side Story - premiered in 1957 ----
  • songs include: America, Mambo, Maria, I Feel Pretty
• On The Town - musical about 3 sailors who are exploring NY City
  • songs include: New York New York ( a Wonderful Town),
• Candide - opera (some people call it a musical or operetta)
  • songs include: Glitter and Be Gay,
• Lenny became the head of the NY Philharmonic. He also had a TV show on CBS called YOUNG PEOPLES CONCERTS. They filmed 53 episodes of this show, where he was teaching the audience (and everyone watching on TV!) about music.
• He was married to Felicia Montealgre Cohn and they had 3 kids - Jamie, Alexander, Nina.

Enter our LEONARD BERNSTEIN poster contest! The form is below: