Program Notes for March 18, 2017. Leonard Bernstein. West Side Story: Symphonic Dances. Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1918 and died in New York City in 1990. He composed West Side Story in 1957, and extracted the Symphonic Dances in 1960. The work was first performed in 1961. As the production of West Side Story moved forward it was beset by crises. Mary of the sections of the Symphonic Dances and how they relate to the action in West Side Story: Prologue: The growing rivalry. The stops to honor its then Music Director with a program of his own music. Bernstein sat in the first. Atmosphere Weather And Climate Barry Pdf Reader.

Join us for our Bernstein Bash concert on Saturday 5/31 at 8pm and Sunday 6/1 at 3pm, both in Mandel Hall. Here are our ever popular program notes! Program Notes for BERNSTEIN BASH “The greater the composer,” Leonard Bernstein once said, “the better case you can make out for his eclecticism.” Indeed, the composer himself was an enthusiastic proponent of eclectic pursuits both in his career and his compositional style. Donning an exceptional array of hats throughout his life, Bernstein simultaneously inhabited the identities of conductor, author, activist, educator, pianist, radio broadcaster, and composer of Broadway musicals, operas, film scores, ballets, choral pieces, and symphonic works. His musical oeuvre cumulatively traverses the realms of religious and secular, esoteric and accessible, solemn and satirical, tonal and serial, national and cosmopolitan, classical and popular. Tonight’s program offers a sampling of these many compositional guises.

The Suite contains four principle themes, opening with a quiet, atmospheric theme sounding like the “Aaron Copland American sound” plus blue notes thrown in. Initiating the “dockyard violence” theme that accompanies the fight scenes and foreshadows the gang-fight dance numbers from West Side Story. The latest news articles from Billboard Magazine, including reviews, business, pop, hip-hop, rock, dance, country and more.

Framed by the opening and closing numbers of Candide, an operetta whose different incarnations likewise framed Bernstein’s career, the program also presents the numerologically inspired twelve-tone Dybbuk symphonic suite, the Symphonic Dances taken from the immensely popular West Side Story, and the diversely styled Chichester Psalms for mixed chorus and orchestra. Born to Jewish Ukrainian immigrant parents in 1918, Bernstein was not raised to be a musician. The young boy was captivated by piano performances from a young age, however, and showed immediate interest in playing the instrument when his family inherited his aunt’s old piano.

Bernstein’s family eventually grew to encourage his musical talents, finding qualified piano teachers and supporting his passionate focus on music throughout his teenage years. Bernstein entered Harvard University in 1935, majoring in music but pursuing a wide range of subjects that surely influenced his later intellectual and artistic eclecticism.

After college he began graduate work at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, studying piano, orchestration, counterpoint, score reading, and conducting. Though Bernstein was not thrilled with his time spent at Curtis, he was quite successful there; he is rumored to have received the only “A” grade his conducting teacher Fritz Reiner ever granted a student. Auto Kaufvertrag Polnisch Deutsch Pdf Writer.

Bernstein continued to find promising musical opportunities following graduation, first through a conducting class at Tanglewood with Serge Koussevitzky and later as assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic. The moment that launched Bernstein into national stardom, however, was an unexpected one: Bruno Walter, then the Philharmonic’s principal director, came down with the flu before a nationally broadcast performance in November 1943, and the young conductor was asked to step in with little time to prepare. This debut performance was unanimously well received, and Bernstein gained immediate renown as an up-and-coming American conductor. He began to accept guest conducting posts around the country, and eventually became the New York Philharmonic’s director in 1958. His time at the helm of the renowned institution was outstandingly successful: the Philharmonic’s audience tripled during his tenure and became a year-round ensemble, earning a reputation for its innovative programming and unique musical interpretations. Perhaps most notably, however, Bernstein was simultaneously the youngest director in the ensemble’s history and the first American to hold the prestigious position. Indeed, Bernstein is widely credited with earning American musical directors a place on the international stage; previously (and perhaps still), conductors born and trained in the States were considered less qualified than their European counterparts.