A PRESENTATION FOR MUSIC STUDENTS
The Leonard Bernstein Office is offering a brand-new, hourlong presentation — Leonard Bernstein: Citizen Artist — to engage and inform young musicians about Bernstein’s life and work, so that they may look to him as a role model and inspiration in their own artistic efforts.
The presentation will divide Bernstein’s life into four main categories: conductor, composer, educator, and activist-humanitarian. There will be accompanying audio and video clips, as well as images of relevant items culled from his vast archive at The Library of Congress.
We encourage the students themselves, if possible, to learn and share a brief Bernstein work, so as to give them a more engaged, participatory experience of the presentation.
““It is the artists of this world, the feelers and thinkers, who will ultimately save us, who can articulate, educate, defy, insist, sing, and shout the big dreams.””
WHY BERNSTEIN SPEAKS TO US TODAY
Leonard Bernstein spent his entire life putting his music-making to work to make the world a better place. His example provides today's emerging musicians with a bright beacon, as they contemplate ways to make their art meaningful in a complex and challenging world.
YOUR HOST: JAMIE BERNSTEIN
Jamie Bernstein is an author, narrator, and filmmaker who has transformed a lifetime of loving music into a career of sharing her knowledge and excitement with others. Since their father’s death in 1990, Jamie and her two siblings, Alexander and Nina, have committed themselves to preserving and disseminating their father's rich legacy.
In today’s world, where young musicians struggle with the notion that being an artist doesn’t do enough to help a troubled planet, Jamie feels more strongly than ever that her father’s approach to music will resonate deeply with music students.
More about Leonard Bernstein: Citizen Artist
Leonard Bernstein was a forerunner of today’s “citizen artists.” His life, and the choices he made throughout, provide a meaningful, hope-inspiring example of how much a musician can contribute to the world.
COMPOSER
As a composer, Bernstein’s repertoire is noteworthy for its multiplicity of genres and styles. Bernstein turned again and again to themes that confronted the state of humanity. His bravery and independence as an artist serve as an encouraging example to young artists who might feel pressured by others to express themselves in particular or limiting ways
Despite the disapproval he experienced from mentors and academic circles for writing tonal music — and particularly musical theatre — Bernstein persisted in writing music of all kinds, throughout his life.
CONDUCTOR
As a conductor, Bernstein left behind a rich and varied trove of recorded performances. There are orchestral, choral, operatic works and more — both traditional and contemporary.
In his longtime role as music director of the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein was committed to supporting young, rising composers, whose works he regularly commissioned and presented to his audiences, and subsequently recorded. He performed benefit concerts; he programmed works that were relevant to the issues of the day; he engaged artists who themselves were speaking out against tyranny and injustice.
EDUCATOR
Bernstein’s impact as an educator cannot be overestimated. By putting the New York Philharmonic’s traditional Young People’s Concerts series on CBS national television — eventually broadcast around the world — Bernstein brought orchestral music into millions of living rooms, singlehandedly creating more classical music fans than perhaps any other musical presenter in the 20th century.
His educational efforts infused all his work — from books to recordings to pre- concert talks to music festivals and beyond — and his philosophies of education inform the successful teaching model, Artful Learning, currently being used in schools nationwide.
HUMANITARIAN
Throughout his career, Bernstein remained a committed activist and humanitarian. His life spanned many cataclysmic world events which shook him profoundly — yet they also galvanized him to strive all the harder to make the world a better place. Sometimes his efforts got him into trouble, but he was undeterred from speaking out wherever and whenever he saw an injustice or a dire need.
Crucially, Bernstein put his own music-making toward these purposes. Taken as a whole, Bernstein’s compositions express a fervent wish for human compassion. His is a powerful example of engagement with the world that is ideal for today’s young composers and performers to discover and emulate.