For the first time, the symphony «Kaddish» composed by the famous American composer Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), has been played in Yad Vashem, the Shoa Memorial in Jerusalem. Produced in 1963 in Tel Aviv, this work which proposes an iconoclast version of the «Kaddish», the prayer of the dead in Judaism, yet takes root in the Jewish tradition. A duality respected in the text of Samuel Pisar, survivor of Auschwitz, which is an integral part of the last version of this symphonic work.

The Tanglewood Music Center has announced the recipients of the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship and the Felicia Montealegre Bernstein Fellowship. Congratulations to David Hughes, Jung Sun Kang and Elena Doubovitskaya.

This Fourth of July, thrill to Leonard Bernstein's recording of John Philip Sousa's greatest patriotic marches, including the world-renowned Stars and Stripes forever!  And experience Bernstein at his most eloquent -- his "Songfest" -- composed to honor the bicentennial birthday of American independence.  It includes settings of 12 poems, all by great American poets, from Walt Whitman to Langston Hughes, from Edgar Allan Poe to Frank O'Hara.

Obersvations on "West Side Story" from Julie Nagel, Ph. D.

"I recently  went the West Side Story revival. I feel changed by the experience. I don¹t think I can really put it in words. I felt something the minute we saw the marquee on Broadway.....excitement, yes, but more.....and when we walked into the theater I could only try to imagine what Bernstein and the other collaborators felt when they attended the premier.

The Play/Opera/Show ­ I don¹t know what to call it, is so familiar to me that I didn¹t know what to expect...also I've been analyzing it all year and presenting it all year, so I didn¹t know if I¹d get intellectual watching. No way! I was mesmerized from opening to close, and yes, I needed more kleenex than I brought ­ The bright red curtain was breathtaking as I sat waiting for I'm not quite sure what....except I was there.....It was real, and unreal. The opening tritone blast drew me in not as a researcher or psychoanalyst. I was caught up in the Sharks and Jets, and by extension myself,  the entire 2 hours 40 minutes.

WSS is timeless and timely. It is magnificent. The themes made more poignant through the genius music - so many of them speak to us today, yesterday, and tomorrow .It is breathtaking .  The Spanish  seemed natural to me and not just beccause I know all the words by heart - I think anyone would "get it".

The dancing was unbelievable. How can anyone do those things? I would go again.....and again."

Julie Jaffee Nagel, Ph.D. is a graduate of The Juilliard School (Piano) , The University of Michigan (MA psychology, MSW, Ph.D. psychology and social work) , and the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute, where she is on the faculty.  She is Chair of the ApsaA Discussion Group, “Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Music” and Co-Chair of the ApsaA Committee, “Psychoanalysis and the Arts”.  Winner of the Nathan Segel Award (2003 - paper on Mozart, 2007 paper on Lucia di Lammermoor) and Karl A. Menninger Award (2008 paper on Lucia di Lammermoor), she has published and presented  to a variety of groups on her work on performance anxiety and music as a point of entry into emotion.    In  January 2009  Dr. Nagel presented  at  the  American Psychoanalytic Association national  meetings in New York  on "West Side Story"  with  Jamie Bernstein as invited featured speaker.  Dr. Nagel also presented her work on West Side Story  at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Center, April 2009.  Julie Jaffee Nagel is in private practice in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

In Memoriam: Julia Vega

February 25, 1918 – June 7, 2009

Julia Vega, legendary nanny and housekeeper for the family of Leonard Bernstein, died on June 7 of complications from stomach surgery. She was 91 years old. Up to the day of her surgery, Ms. Vega was the active housekeeper at the apartment jointly owned by the Bernstein family. Although long entitled to retirement, Ms. Vega chose to continue her myriad activities, including her sought-after cooking, her sewing and laundering, her care of birds and her prodigious horticulture.

Raised on a farm in the foothills of the Chilean Andes, Ms. Vega came to work for the Bernstein family in 1954, when the eldest Bernstein child, Jamie, was just 2. Alexander was born the following year, and Nina was born in 1962. Ms. Vega helped raise all three Bernstein children, filling in both as nanny and housekeeper when the Bernstein parents were abroad. She acquired excellent English speaking and reading skills, eventually becoming a U.S. citizen, a proud voter and an avid follower of national politics.

After the death of Felicia Montealegre Bernstein in 1978, Ms. Vega became Mr. Bernstein's live-in housekeeper at his apartment in the famous Dakota building on the Upper West Side. After Mr. Bernstein died in 1990, the Bernstein children sold the Dakota apartment and acquired a smaller apartment in the Parc Vendome building on West 56th Street. In this new apartment, Ms. Vega took on the role of elder-in-chief of the Bernstein family. Alexander Bernstein had his office there, and various friends and family members dropped by daily. Ms. Vega unfailingly supplied refreshments for board meetings, music rehearsals and all manner of activities at the apartment. Her friends traversed all walks of society, from the building doormen to Peter Jennings. Her coffee was equally strong for one and all, but only the inner circle was permitted to sample her celebrated empanadas.

Ms. Vega was renowned for her discretion. Had she chosen, she could have written the ultimate tell-all about the myriad luminaries who came through the Bernstein household over the years: everyone from Mrs. John F. Kennedy and her children, to the actor Richard Burton and his wife Elizabeth Taylor, to the Bernsteins' Dakota neighbor Rudolf Nureyev. She was a fierce defender of familial privacy in a world of persistent public scrutiny.

Ms. Vega transcended the definitions of family service, becoming a family member herself and ultimately the beacon of that family. "She was loyal beyond telling," wrote family friend Mike Nichols of Ms. Vega.

Funeral services will be held on Thursday morning, June 11, at 10 a.m. at the Church of St. Francis de Sales in Manhattan.

Behind-the-Scenes Video of the West Side Story recording session

Follow the Amazon.com link to see exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of the new West Side Story cast recording sessions!

Order your copy of Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician by Barry Seldes today!

"Finally, a biography of Bernstein that does not merely chronicle of his career but truly explains it. Barry Seldes argues most convincingly that Bernstein's life in music is bound up with his political perspective, and his creative commitments reflected his social ones. What emerges from this meticulously researched, engagingly written, and utterly fascinating account is a richer, truer portrait of an important American composer, conductor, and citizen."--Elizabeth Bergman, author of Music for the Common Man: Aaron Copland during the Depression and War "

Celebrate Memorial Day with Lenny!

 Click here to purchase Bernstein's recording of Ives' Holidays Symphony, including Decoration Day, a nostalgic and powerful musical depiction of a village band's celebration of Memorial Day.

"What a ball Lenny and his players have with the music! Everyone is at his or her spontaneous best." - BBC Music Magazine

 New York Festival of Song announces reissue of many of its acclaimed Koch entertainment CD recordings including the Grammy-winning Arias and Barcarolles (featuring Judy Kaye)

Congratulations, West Side Story receives the following Tony Award nominations:

• Best Revival of a Musical
• Best Leading Actress in a Musical – Josefina Scaglione
• Best Featured Actress in a Musical – Karen Olivo
• Best Lighting Design – Howell Binkley

Leonard Bernstein's Legendary Recordings of The Complete Mahler Symphonies Released on Sony Masterworks. Remixed and Remastered From the Original Tapes for the First Time. Featuring The Long-Unavailable Audio Documentary 'Gustav Mahler Remembered' as a Special Bonus, to Coincide With Carnegie Hall's Presentation of 'Mahler: The Symphonies In Sequence' From May 6 to 17

The 2009 Spring/Summer issue of Prelude, Fugue & Riffs  is available in print and online.

  articles include

• IU Jacob's School of Music receives Bernstein GIft
• West Side Story takes over Broadway!
• Leonard Bernstein and Felix Mendelssohn
• Today's Mass
• Leonard Bernstein's Boston Years Archive
• Peter Pan flies in Santa Barbara
• and much much more!

West Side Story Nominated for Outer Circle and Drama League Awards

Hartford Symphony Orchestra Tribute to Leonard Bernstein Thursday and Friday

The Hartford Symphony Orchestra will close out its 2008-09 Connection Concert Series with a tribute to Leonard Bernstein today and Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Belding Theater in the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford.

West Side Story takes over Broadway!

Just a few of the reviews from the new Broadway revival of West Side Story that opened on Thursday, March 19th.

The NY Times - Ben Brantley

"Karen Olivo...delivers big-time"

"Ms. Scaglione's stunningly natural Maria...has the confidence associated with young women who are beautiful, willful and unacquainted with sorrow. [T]his Maria is not exclusively sweet. You sense that she's the one who's really in charge, and for the first time I could imagine what Tony and Maria's marriage might be like."

"Ms. Olivo's worldly Anita... is a stunner, full of citrusy zest and acerbity."

Bloomberg - John Simon"Whether you've seen several mountings of it or none, you will want to catch this one."

"Best of all remain Leonard Bernstein's enthralling music and Jerome Robbins's sensational, innovative choreography. Good music doesn't age, though much Broadway choreography does; not so this by Robbins."

"As the more realistic Anita -- a role in which Chita Rivera, Rita Moreno and Debbie Allen have at various times dazzled, Karen Olivo manages to be perhaps even more impressive."

"There are remarkable performances from Cody Green as Riff, who's as sardonic as he is threatening, and Curtis Holbrook as Action, another characterful Jet."

Variety - David Rooney

"Leonard Bernstein's majestic score, in particular, is undiminished, shifting fluidly between blasts of syncopated brass fueled by testosterone and rage, and some of the most achingly beautiful expressions of love ever sung."

"The show's high points are too many to mention..."

"But the true stars of the production are Robbins' graceful, endlessly expressive choreography and Bernstein's score, which still sounds bracingly modern a half-century after it was first heard."

"Performed with a deft balance of percussive fury and caressing gentleness by a robust orchestra under the direction of Patrick Vaccariello, the music is a primal force. It reaches emotional apices more often found in opera than musical theater."

Gramophone Magazine - London

"Leonard Bernstein...birthed the brilliant score - unprecedented in Broadway history for both its eclecticism and unity (with the tritone interval, no doubt!), not to mention sheer invention and melodiousness"

USA Today - Elysa Gardner

"...the key to its visceral power has always been Leonard Bernstein's score, a spine-tingling olio of jazz, Latin and classical textures and rapturous melodies that reveal as much about Tony and Maria's feelings as the wonder-struck lyrics provided by a very young Stephen Sondheim."

The Guardian

"You would have to be made of granite not to be moved by Bernstein's score..."

Newsday - Linda Winer

"The much-anticipated rethinking of "West Side Story" is...still "West Side Story," with those jazzy, jagged, gloriously (and shamelessly) sentimental Leonard Bernstein songs and (most of) Stephen Sondheim's swaggering, dazzling lyrics."

"George Akram has a passionate dignity as Bernardo...."

Talkinbroadway.com

"[The] 29-member orchestra (which, under Patrick Vaccariello's musical direction, sounds terrific playing the original Bernstein-Sid Ramin-Irwin Kostal orchestrations)"

"Pamela Otterson is impossibly sensual as Riff's girlfriend Graziella"

Theatermania.com

"Josefina Scaglione...has every ounce of innocence required of Maria, [her] soprano is pure and steady."

"Matt Cavenaugh...is a tough yet compassionate Tony, and his singing of "Something's Coming" and "Maria" is all a fan of the seminal tuner could ask."

Curtainup.com

"They created a show in 1957 that has stood the test of time and remains as one of the musical theatre's most emotionally embracing musicals."

The Chicago Tribune

"Fortunately for a new generation yet to see this show produced at this level, it retains the heart, soul and original moves and sounds of a theatrical masterpiece with Leonard Bernstein melodies so beautiful they reverberate deep in your chest."

WOR Radio

"...the Leonard Bernstein score will blow you away"

LOGO -

"Without a doubt, Josefina Scaglione is the highlight of this production of West Side Story."

"And is there anything more awesome than Leonard Bernstein's stunning score? From the sharp and angular riffs that get the Jets rumbling, to the soaring romance of "Maria" or "Tonight" to the fiery, sexy, spicy rhythms of "America"... Getting to hear the West Side Story's music executed by a Broadway orchestra is thrilling."

Fox News

"The Palace was buzzing, to say the least, like it was an old time Broadway opening night."

" ‘West Side Story' is probably the best ever all around Broadway musical."

NBC NIGHTLY NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS features a backstage tour with West Side Story star Matt Cavenaugh

IU Jacobs School of Music receives priceless Leonard Bernstein gift

Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music today (March 9) announced the receipt of an unprecedented gift from the family of Leonard Bernstein that contains the contents of Leonard Bernstein's Fairfield, Conn., composing studio, including a conducting stool from the Vienna Philharmonic that is said to have been used by Johannes Brahms.

NY Times: Under Broadway, the Subway Hums Bernstein

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/nyregion/21about.html?_r=3&hp

Brand New Leonard Bernstein Archive at the Harvard Loeb Music Library

A wealth of material about Leonard Bernstein's early Boston years (unearthed by undergraduate students in tandem with faculty, librarians and graduate students over the past few years) will be available to the public in a brand new archive, housed at Harvard's Loeb Music Library.

http://my.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=bernstein