Conductor, Composer, Pianist
1918 – 1990 Leonard Bernstein was born in 1918 in Massachusetts. As a child, he learned to play the piano, spent his youth in Boston, attended the Latin School, and was then taught by Heinrich Gebhard and Helen Coates at the instrument at Harvard University. After graduating in 1939, encouraged by Dimitri Mitropoulos, he continued his music studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, studying conducting under Fritz Reiner and piano under Isabella Vengerova. During the summers, Bernstein was a student and assistant to Serge Koussevitzky in Tanglewood, the rural festival venue of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Bernstein's breakthrough as a conductor came on November 14, 1943, when he had to step in at short notice for the suddenly ill Bruno Walter, taking over the baton for a nationwide radio-broadcast concert. At the time, he was just 25 years old and was henceforth regarded as a great hope in the field. In 1945, he became the chief conductor of the New York City Symphony Orchestra. In 1951, he took over the conducting class at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood and a lectureship at Brandeis University. During these years, Bernstein also regularly appeared at the podium of the New York Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and was engaged as a guest conductor by many major orchestras in America and Europe. In 1958, the New York Philharmonic appointed him as their music director. At the age of forty, Bernstein became the first American-born and trained musician to be called to one of the top positions in North American musical life. Over the course of a twelve-year successful collaboration, Bernstein conducted more performances with the orchestra than any of his predecessors. His Mahler interpretations contributed significantly to the recognition of the composer in the second half of the 20th century. During these years, Bernstein also gained attention as a guest conductor at the New York Metropolitan Opera, La Scala in Milan (as the first American), and as an opera conductor at the Vienna State Opera.