Leonard Bernstein - 1918-1990

This year marks the centenary celebration of Leonard Bernstein's birth.  He was born Louis Bernstein in Lawrence, Massachusetts on August 25, 2918 and died October 14, 1990 in New York City, New York at the age of 72.  He was a composer, conductor author, lecturer, and pianist.  According to music critic Donal Henahan, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history."


Bernstein was influenced by the composer Marc Blitzstein, conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos, composer Aaron Copland and conductor Fritz Reiner at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, who is said to have given Bernstein the only "A" grade he ever awarded.


In 1958, he began his tenure as conductor with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, after stepping in at the last moment for conductor Guido Cantelli, who died in an airplane crash.  At this time, he also began his series of fifty-three televised Young People's concerts for CBS.


Bernstein has been awarded Grammy Awards for Best Album for children, Best Orchestral Performance, Best Choral Performance, Best Opera Recording, Best Classical Vocal Performance, Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance, Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Best Classical Album, and Lifetime Achievement.  He also won a Tony Award for Best Musical.  He is a Gramophone Hall of Fame entrant, and a member of both the American Theater Hall of Fame, and the Television Hall of Fame.  In 2015 he was inducted into the Legacy Walk.  In 1990 he won the Japan Arts Association award for lifetime achievement.


His works include ballets, operas, musicals, incidental music and other theatre, film scores, orchestral, choral, chamber music, vocal music, and pianos music. Among his noteworthy are
On the Town (1944), Trouble in Tahiti (1952),
On the Waterfront (1954) Candide (1956), West Side Story (1957), MASS (1971) and A Quiet Place (1983).