Leonard Bernstein’s third and final symphony, known as the “Kaddish,” was first performed in Israel in 1963 and had its U.S. premiere in Boston in 1964. As conductor and Bernstein protégée Marin Alsop ...

A few years ago, during an interview conducted in his Meyerson Symphony Center office, I asked Jaap van Zweden to describe Leonard Bernstein, the iconic American composer/conductor who once encouraged ...

Among Leonard Bernstein's many personal identifications with Gustav Mahler was his fervent desire to be remembered as much – or more – as a composer than as a conductor. The score to "West Side Story" ...

Simply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox. Everybody knows the hit songs from West Side Story, “I Feel Pretty”, “Maria”, “Somewhere”, and the others. They have ...

“How do you make it to Carnegie Hall?” That was the question Secretary Blinken asked the hundreds in attendance from the Perelman Stage at the redoubt of classical music on 57th Street. “Kaddish, ...

On a gloomy damp and cold Sunday afternoon in August 1990, Leonard Bernstein conducted his last concert. Suffering from the late stages of emphysema, he gasped for air while leading an incomparably ...

If there’s any orchestra that knows how to celebrate the life and work of Leonard Bernstein, whose centennial arrives next August, it’s the New York Philharmonic. During Bernstein’s time as music ...

Centenary celebrations highlight the composer’s broad ambitions and appeal Leonard Bernstein’s centenary fell late last month – he was born on August 25, 1918 – and all year it has been celebrated in ...

Leonard Bernstein — the composer, conductor, pianist and rule-breaker — offered the classical music world a different model, drawing on an American vernacular in his compositions, and challenging the ...

Of all the multifold moods and personalities that course through the music of Leonard Bernstein, there are two traits that stand out as particularly characteristic — his jazzy energy and his tender, ...