Posts in Talk
TALK - LEONARD BERNSTEIN: A BORN TEACHER

(EXCERPT)

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.

Read More
TalkJamie BernsteinTeacher
A TALK BEFORE "MASS"

(EXCERPT)

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.

Read More
TalkJamie BernsteinMass
A TALK ON CANDIDE

(EXCERPT)

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.

Read More
TalkJamie BernsteinCandide