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Jamie Bernstein's hourlong presentation — Leonard Bernstein: Citizen Artist — began as a means of engaging and informing young musicians about her father's life and work, so that they may look to him as a role model and inspiration in their own artistic efforts. Due to popular demand, Jamie's talk has evolved into a presentation for adults of all ages, kids of all ages, musical newbies, and musical cognoscenti.
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As the 20th century got under way, American music in the concert hall was finding its own musical identity; it would no longer be merely a pale imitation of Europe.
The exciting new compositions reverberating in concert halls across the U.S. allowed audiences to hear their nation's own unique musical tributaries merging together to form a bold, new, identifiably American musical current.
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This is a live, interactive online course all about the music and legacy of Leonard Bernstein. Over the course of four live sessions you will be exploring the rich legacy of one of the 20th Century’s foremost musicians, featuring fascinating video and audio clips, as well as guest appearances by numerous cultural luminaries.
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People often say that Leonard Bernstein was a born teacher, but actually it's more accurate to say that he was a born student who just couldn't wait to share what he learned. In his whole life, he never stopped studying.
Leonard Bernstein had such facility as a teacher that he was sometimes not taken seriously as a scholar. But make no mistake; hereally did his homework. As a young student, he applied himself at Boston Latin School, Harvard and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He made the most of his liberal arts education at Harvard, where he studied as wide a range of subjects as he could fit into his schedule.
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From his earliest conflicts with his father, Leonard Bernstein was already establishing a template for a lifetime of wrestling with his creator, of confronting authority. Over and over again, he turned to his father's beloved Hebrew biblical texts for both inspiration and disputation. These texts appear in so many pieces over my father’s lifetime that taken together with the music, they document a lifelong, heated dialogue with God. MASS is a particularly impassioned chapter of the argument.
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Here's the irony: at the point where the score chokes you up, that's the point where Bernstein and Voltaire have parted ways.
Voltaire's caustic sensibility was much closer, actually, to Lillian Hellman's than to Bernstein's. As effervescent and delightful as the songs are in "Candide," it was not enough for Bernstein to leave it at that. He just had to give the show some heart. But in truth, that's not in the genuine spirit of Voltaire.
