Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990)

Marika Somogyi (b. Budapest, Hungary 1933)
USA, 1993
Bronze, h. 1 ¾ x w. 1 ¾ in.
Cincinnati Skirball Museum, Jewish-American Hall of Fame Collection, gift of Mel and Esther Wacks, Debra Wacks, and Shari Wacks, 2019.7.49

Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Bernstein began learning piano as a young boy when the family acquired his cousin’s unwanted piano. A composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist, he was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States to receive worldwide acclaim. His fame derived from his long tenure as the music director of the New York Philharmonic, from his conducting of concerts with most of the world’s leading orchestras, and from his music for West Side Story, Peter Pan, Candide, Wonderful Town, On the Town, On the Waterfront, his Mass, and a range of other compositions, including three symphonies and many shorter chamber and solo works. Bernstein was the first conductor to give a series of television lectures on classical music, starting in 1954 and continuing until his death. As a composer he wrote in many styles encompassing symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music and pieces for the piano. Many of his works are regularly performed around the world, although none has matched the tremendous popular and critical success of West Side Story. His association with the Israel Philharmonic began shortly after the establishment of the Jewish State, when Bernstein conducted seven official concerts in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa. Leonard Bernstein is widely regarded as the most gifted and versatile American musician of the 20th century.