President Elizabeth (Beth) J. Stroble invites the community to hear Jamie Bernstein, daughter of the famous composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein and author of the acclaimed "Famous Father Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein."
Bernstein will be at Webster University's main campus in Webster Groves on Nov. 6 as part of the "Contemporary Conversations for a Connected World" speaker series.
Her father, Leonard Bernstein became a legend for his work with the New York Philharmonic and his many compositions like West Side Story and Candide that played in Broadway theaters and European concert halls.
Leonard Bernstein was one of the biggest celebrities of his day. Yet as the book description states, "to his eldest daughter, Jamie, he was above all the man in the scratchy brown bathrobe who smelled of cigarettes; the jokester and compulsive teacher who enthused about Beethoven and the Beatles; the insomniac whose 4 a.m. composing breaks involved spooning baby food out of the jar. He taught his daughter to love the world in all its beauty and complexity. In public and private, Lenny was larger than life.
In her book, Jamie Bernstein takes us inside this world and what it was like to live in the Bernstein household. The New York Times Book Review writes: "Jamie is in print a warm but unsparing eyewitness: peeking poignantly from the wings as her progenitor glories, sifting through the jumbo pillbox when he starts to fall apart."
Event Details
5 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 6
Browning Hall, Interdisciplinary Science Building auditorium, 8274 Big Bend Blvd.
Bernstein's talk and book signing is free and open to the public, but RSVP to [email protected].