Leonard Bernstein

Piccola serenata for Voice and Piano

On August 27, 1979, Leonard Bernstein’s song “Piccola Serenata” was premiered at the Salzburger Festspiele | Salzburg Festival.

We share with you this recording of Joyce DiDonato and pianist David Zobel! Da-ga-da-ga-do!

open.spotify.com/track/5Orhlh...

"I've always been very lucky with my teachers; all (my) teachers loved to teach, thus teaching us to love to learn. I'm still learning; it's my favorite activity."

- Leonard Bernstein
December 4, 1986

[📸Leonard Bernstein looks over score with mentor Serge Koussevitzky, February 14, 1944]

Happy Birthday, Lenny! 🥳

[📸 Birthday welcome for Leonard Bernstein upon arrival in Osaka, 1970. Courtesy of the New York Philharmonic Digital Archives.]

Happy #WorldPhotographyDay!

[📸Leonard Bernstein at a press conference, 1960s. Courtesy of the New York Philharmonic Digital Archives]

It's #ThrowbackThursday! Caption this photo! 📸

[Leonard Bernstein, 1962. Courtesy of the New York Philharmonic Archives.]

"When one is in the private composing life, one is alone. And one sees friends, and one has one's much loved family, and so it wouldn't seem to be all that alone, but the compositorial process is very lonely."
-Leonard Bernstein, Reflections (1977)

Discovery's Shark Week strikes a slightly different chord at our office. Happy #SharkWeek from The Leonard Bernstein Office!

Happy World Listening Day! 🎧What are you listening to today?

"I know that when I listened to music, I felt something stir within me, as though I were becoming subconsciously aware of music as my raison d'être.”
-Leonard Bernstein

[📸Don Hunstein, courtesy of Sony Classical.]

Today is National Hot Dog Day, but we’re celebrating the non-grill variety, namely the dachshund, or Wiener dog!
Leonard Bernstein was passionate about the many dachshund he owned, all named Henry.

[Photo by Walter Alford. Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives.]

YouTube video by Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein plays Rock n' Roll!

Happy National Rock N' Roll Day! 😎

Here's a compilation of Bernstein playing some famous rock n' roll tunes by The Kinks, The Beatles, and more!

[Video from various Young People's Concerts, courtesy of Unitel]

youtu.be/UbiGJS8H5Wg

“A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.”

Leonard Bernstein
A Sabbatical Report, Infinite Variety of Music, 1962

"What art itself can do is move people to an extent whereby they can wake up and be active."
-Leonard Bernstein, 1977
[📸 © Arthur Umboh/Deutsche Grammophon]

Happy World Music Day! 🎶
“When we touch one another through music, we are touching the heart, the mind, and the spirit, all at once.”-Leonard Bernstein
How are you making music today?

[📸 Courtesy of Sony Classical]

Today we wish a very happy 90th birthday to double bassist Orin O'Brien!
Orin O'Brien became a member of the New York Philharmonic in 1966, during Leonard Bernstein's time as music director.

[📸 O'Brien & Bernstein, Oct 1989. Photo by Ron Barnell, courtesy of the New York Phil Digital Archives.]

1.7K views · 20 reactions | Tania Leon describes Leonard Bernstein's 'Maria' | Sure, the song 'Maria' from Leonard Bernstein's musical 'West Side Story' is lovely. For composer and conductor Tania J. ... Sure, the song 'Maria' from Leonard Bernstein's musical 'West Side Story' is lovely. For composer and conductor Tania J. Leon, it meant so much more....

We wish a happy birthday today to Cuban composer and conductor Tania León! Born in Cuba, Tania describes her first understanding of New York City and Bernstein's music through her experience of West Side Story. We invite you to listen to her story in her own words:

www.facebook.com/perftoday/vi...

YouTube video by Leonard Bernstein Brahms - Symphony No. 4 (mvmt. 3 excerpt) | Leonard Bernstein - Vienna Philharmonic

Today, we celebrate the birth of composer Johannes Brahms! 🎶

Enjoy this video of Leonard Bernstein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic / Wiener Philharmoniker in an excerpt from the third movement of Brahms's Symphony No. 4, recorded in 1983.

youtu.be/hIkdpCtKLoE

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

"Teaching is probably the noblest profession in the world — the most unselfish, difficult, and honorable profession, but it is also the most unappreciated, underrated, underpaid, and under-praised profession in the world." -Leonard Bernstein
#TeacherAppreciationWeek

Happy World Laughter Day! 😄

[📸 © Dan Weiner/Courtesy Deutsche Grammophon - DG]
#WorldLaughterDay

Happy Wild Koala Day!🐨💕🐨 #WildKoalaDay is a day to celebrate wild koalas and protect their habitats.

[📸Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Brisbane, Australia, 1974, courtesy of New York Philharmonic Digital Archives]

We invite you to read the Bernstein Family’s Guest Essay, published today in The New York Times.
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/02/o...

[Photo by Henry Grossman, courtesy of the Library of Congress Music Division.]

Happy International Jazz Day! 🎷🎶🎺

"Jazz is the ultimate common denominator of the American musical style."
–Leonard Bernstein

[📸 by Don Hunstein; Courtesy of @sonyclassical.]

#LeonardBernstein #Music #Musician #InternationalJazzDay #Jazz

"I love to play and that’s why I don’t really make distinctions of my life between work and play. Work is play and even the painful act of composing music, all alone, all night, every night for weeks, is a form of play, you are playing with notes, you are juggling them." -Leonard Bernstein, 1988

Today is #WorldBookDay!

We encourage you to read these books by Leonard Bernstein:

📕The Joy of Music, 1959
📗The Infinite Variety of Music, 1966
📘Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts, 1970
📙The Unanswered Question: Six Talks At Harvard, 1976
📕Findings, 1982

Happy #WorldVoiceDay! 🎤

"I would give anything to be able to express myself musically with my voice." -Leonard Bernstein, 1945.

[📸 Ruth Orkin]

🗨“A composer has to have an inner road map; he has to know what the next destination is going to be...he must convey to us a sense of rightness, a sense that whatever note succeeds that last is the only possible note that can rightly happen at that instant.”
Leonard Bernstein, 1954

Happy Step into the Spotlight Day! ✨

We hope you all get a moment to shine today! 🤩

[📸Courtesy of Sony]

"Every artist copes with reality by means of his fantasy. Fantasy, better known as imagination, is his greatest treasure, his basic equipment for life. And since his work is his life, his fantasy is constantly in play. He dreams life."
Leonard Bernstein, 1980

[📸 by David Gahr, Tanglewood, 1968. ]

Happy Teach Music Week! 👩‍🏫🎼🧑‍🏫🎶
"Teach people to read music. It’s not so difficult, and it’s perfectly possible to include the reading of music in the basic materials of education."
-Leonard Bernstein
Music Should Be Listened To, Not Heard (1959)

"When I compose it's an inner discipline that controls me.... it's another person that emerges, more absorbed in an interior world."

-Leonard Bernstein (interview with Judith Karp, September, 1979)

[Photo: Victor Kraft, 1947; courtesy of The Library of Congress]

Daylight savings begins today (in most of the US and Canada)!

Don't be late to rehearsal by forgetting to set your clocks and watches ahead 1 hour. 🕰

[📸Leonard Bernstein 1960s. Courtesy of the New York Philharmonic Digital Archives]