Memoir depicts iconic composer

By Rachel Fixsen - Moab Sun News
August 30, 2018

Last week, on Aug. 25, Google’s jazzy, animated banner doodle featured a young musician mastering his art and achieving notoriety and success. That musician is world-renowned American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, who died in 1990 — the cartoon commemorated his 100th birthday. Events across the world are likewise paying tribute to Bernstein this month, including the release of a memoir by Bernstein’s oldest daughter, Jamie Bernstein. She will be giving a reading from her book, Famous Father Girl, at Back of Beyond Books on Wednesday, Sept. 5. 

“[It’s] extremely well written,” said Andy Nettell, owner of Back of Beyond Books, of the memoir. “Its a very intimate portrait of who her father was... On one hand you hear the very personal stories of when they would go out as a family and go dancing and attending the family parties with all these literati and notables. And then on the other hand, seeing her dad on the world stage, whether in Berlin when the wall was coming down, or in New York, or wherever he was performing. Especially as a young girl, she would tag along with him to a lot of these events, and she had the opportunity to travel the world... so she was introduced to an amazing host of people. She got to go see the Beatles as a youngster, got to go backstage.”

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Jamie Bernstein