Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen
September 6, 2025
Her father, Leonard Bernstein, thought “that if he could write a good enough song, maybe he could stop war.” Not insane, aspiring. “It’s ridiculously idealistic, but that was his impetus.” Tales of a famous father. Presented with The Village Trip, whose annual festival begins September 19.
Read MoreamNY - The Villager
September 17, 2025
Jamie Bernstein, the author, narrator, director, broadcaster and filmmaker who happens to be the daughter of the famed composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, has lived all over the city.
From her upbringing on West 57th Street to Park Avenue to the Upper East Side to a brief stay at the Dakota, Jamie Bernstein grew up way above 14th Street but developed a special rapport with Greenwich Village as a teen.
In 1967, she and her best friend were 15 years old, “a little too young to appreciate everything, but we were inhaling it all. … It was the absolute epicenter of coolness in the 60s,” she recalls.
Read MoreThe New York Times
May 2, 2025
By Nina Bernstein SimmonsAlexander Bernstein and Jamie Bernstein
Our father, the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, liked to tell us about the time Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis called to ask him to be the first executive director of the Kennedy Center in Washington, which was being built as a memorial to her slain husband. He was so honored that he blurted out a yes — then hung up aghast. He didn’t feel remotely suited to be executive director of anything.
Read MoreNew York Social Diary
February 6, 2025
Leonard Bernstein’s monumental Kaddish,” Symphony No. 3 received a special performance at Carnegie Hall on January 29th with a thunderous libretto by his friend Samuel Pisar titled “A Dialogue with God.”
ast week’s concert was attended by the composer’s daughters Jamie and Nina Bernstein, Jerry Seinfeld and his wife Jessica, Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, twenty UN ambassadors, eminent members of the diplomatic community as well as religious and civil society leaders from over a dozen countries.
Read MoreMiami Herald
January 6, 2025
Leonard Bernstein’s operetta “Candide” deserves its place of honor in the repertoire of any contemporary classical music company. Since its Broadway debut in 1956 as a musical, the complex yet captivating work has undergone numerous iterations, all while preserving its freshness and relevance.
Read MoreOrlando Sentinel
November 1, 2024
After 17 people were killed at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in 2018 — the deadliest mass shooting ever at a U.S. high school — producer Portia Kamons and composer Ron Ramin felt called to action.
“We set out to create something to soothe America’s collective grief,” Kamons said, “but as we met the young people leading the charge for meaningful change, we chose to make this project about them.”
Read MoreThe Times
October 6, 2024
Interview: The composer’s daughter Jamie shares memories of her childhood and Bradley Cooper’s film Maestro as the Royal Opera House stages her father’s operas for the first time
Read MoreClassical-Music.com by BBC Music Magazine
September 15, 2024
Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Jamie Bernstein discuss how Bradley Cooper embodied the late great conductor Leonard Bernstein in appearance, movement and, of course, conducting...
Moab Sun News
Aug 30, 2024
The Moab Music Festival was founded by Michael Barrett and Leslie Tompkins over 30 years ago, and the influence of legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein was present even then. This season, the festival is holding a free screening of the biopic film “Maestro,” along with a presentation from Berstein’s daughter Jamie.
Salon.com
June 13, 2024
On "Everything Fab Four," the author discusses being John and Yoko's neighbor and learning Beatles music theory
Author, filmmaker and narrator Jamie Bernstein – daughter of legendary composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein – joined host Kenneth Womack to talk about meeting the Beatles, becoming neighbors with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, “Maestro” (which was based on her memoir, “Famous Father Girl”) and much more on “Everything Fab Four.”
Read MorePBS - American Masters
March 5, 2024
What would it be like to see your family life portrayed in a movie?
For siblings Jamie, Alexander and Nina Bernstein, that question has been answered. As the children of composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein and actress Felicia Montealegre, their parents’ lives are the subject of Academy Award-nominated film “Maestro.” Directed by and starring Bradley Cooper, the movie is a portrait of the complicated relationship between the couple from the early days of their courtship through marital challenges and final moments – exploring intimate and controversial aspects of Bernstein’s private life.
Read MoreHarvard Medicine: The Magazine of Harvard Medical School
March 1, 2024
Prior to the premiere of “Maestro,” HMS alumni discussed the influence of music on emotion with Jamie Bernstein, Leonard Bernstein’s daughter
What effect does music have on our inner world? And how does a composer’s psychology manifest in their work? Jamie Bernstein, AB ’74, Samuel Wong, MD ’88, and Patrick Whelan, HMS part-time lecturer on pediatrics, explored these questions on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1973 Norton Lectures in Poetry.
Read MoreThe Village Sun
February 27, 2024
Like opening a rocking time capsule from the 1960s, the sights, sounds and excitement of Beatlemania came to life once again for one special night at City Winery, thanks to The Village Trip festival.
Titled “It Was 60 Years Ago Today: A Beatles Conversation With Cousin Brucie and Jamie Bernstein,” the Feb. 5 event at Pier 57 brought together Beatles fans to hear legendary radio DJ Bruce Morrow and Jamie Bernstein, the daughter of composer Leonard Bernstein, share their memories of and reflections on those heady days. Joining them on the bill was Blac Rabbit, a Brooklyn rock duo who uncannily channel the Fab Four’s sound.
Read MoreNew York Philharmonic
January 30, 2024
Leonard Bernstein had an affinity for the music of Gustav Mahler, as seen in the climax of the Oscar-nominated 2023 Netflix film “Maestro.” In this special episode of the podcast Embrace Everything, we explore what the two musicians had in common, and learn how Bernstein brought Mahler back into the spotlight in the 1960s. Guests include Jamie Bernstein (Leonard Bernstein's daughter) and Gabe Smith (New York Philharmonic Director of Archives and Exhibitions). Special thanks to the New York Philharmonic for adding archival images to accompany the audio. Hosted by Aaron Cohen.
Town & Country
January 27, 2024
If you're a read-the-book-before-you-see-the-movie type of person, add these books to your reading list ASAP.
Famous Father Girl: The Intimate Memoir of Leonard Bernstein and His Family That Helped Inspire the New Movie Maestro
This memoir of Leonard Bernstein, written by his daughter Jamie, partly inspired Bradley Cooper's Maestro. "There was simply no moment when Leonard Bernstein wasn't being a teacher," she writes. "It was words, above all, that he shared with us in all their glorious incarnations."
Read MoreThe Harvard Gazette
January 24, 2024
Alum recalls dad’s love of Harvard, learning as biopic draws Oscar noms
Before Leonard Bernstein ’39 became the legendary composer and conductor portrayed by Bradley Cooper in the Oscar-nominated biopic “Maestro,” he studied and played music as an undergraduate at Harvard.
“Our father gave education the highest value in life, and he was very proud to be a Harvard alumnus,” said daughter Jamie Bernstein ’74.
Read MoreEarly Bird Books
January 17, 2024
Many of 2023's best movies were based on books.
A new year is upon us, which means we’re only a few months away from the Oscars. 2023 was a fascinating year for film, particularly the kinds that the Academy likes to reward: biopics, historical dramas, musicals, costume dramas, and stories that make you gasp with wonder at how the hell they ever pulled that off.
Read MoreClassicalMusic.com by BBC Music Magazine
January 16, 2024
Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Jamie Bernstein discuss how Bradley Cooper embodied the late great conductor Leonard Bernstein in appearance, movement and, of course, conducting...
Town & Country
January 6, 2024
Curious to learn more about Leonard Bernstein? Add these books to your TBR list.
A brand-new biographical film of Leonard Bernsteinn, Maestro, is now streaming on Netflix, but Bradley Cooper's film only offers a snippet of the life of the famed composer and conductor.
These 10 books about Leonard Bernstein—including Jamie's memoir, Famous Father Girl, which partly inspired Cooper in making Maestro—are key in understanding the man, "the human being," as Jamie writes, behind the fame. Here, what to read after Maestro:
Read MoreHarvey Brownstone Interviews
December 28, 2023
Today’s guest, Jamie Bernstein, is an author, narrator, director, broadcaster and filmmaker who also happens to be the daughter of one of the greatest legendary composers and conductors the world has ever known, Leonard Bernstein.