The Life, Career and Works of Leonard Bernstein

Instructor: Owen Cantor
March 5 and 7. 1-3 p.m.

We will examine the career of Leonard Bernstein through his extraordinary body of work. Bernstein conducted the world’s greatest orchestras, pioneered education on television, was successful writing Broadway theater, and at the same time was a serious symphonic composer and concert pianist.

Bernstein was a rare human, considered to be the greatest American musician of the 20th Century. But what was he exactly? Well—he was “everything,” a person truly impossible to pin a label on! In our two lectures, we will discuss and sample among other things: 1) The original pioneering television “Young People’s Concerts,” 2) His Broadway masterpieces including “West Side Story,” “On the Town” and “Candide,” 3) Bernstein’s triumphant conducting career and stunning worldwide orchestral engagements, and finally, 4) his three exciting and emotional symphonies: “Jeremiah,” “The Age of Anxiety,” and “Kaddish.”

Bring your curiosity, and let’s look at Maestro Leonard Bernstein’s incandescent American legacy. Decades after his passing, the world is a better place because of this gifted genius.

Owen Cantor, DMD, was founder and music director of the Summerfest Chamber Music Festival in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In addition to being a practicing dentist, he was trained as a musician, playing French horn. Formerly an Artist-Lecturer at the Carnegie Mellon University College of Fine Arts. Dr. Cantor now teaches Osher Lifelong Learning classes for Carnegie Mellon, University of Pittsburg, Case Western and Duke Universities. His classes explore the diverse emotional impact of classical music in American and European cultural history. He believes “music history is more than a procession of names and faces: it’s a multiplicitous stream of ideas in sound within an ever-shifting social and political context.”