Leonard Bernstein

Operas

A Quiet Place, Trouble in Tahiti

Film score

On the Waterfront

Birth and Death

1918-1991 Massachussetts

Orchestral works

3 Symphonies- Jeremiah, a the Age of Anxiety, Kaddish

Life

At 13 played with a jazz band and at 40 became director of the New York Philharmonic, the first and youngest American-born conductor to ever have the job

Chorus and orchestra

Chichester Psalms

Career

Composer, conductor, educator, pianist, television personality

Ballets

Fancy Free

Musicals

On the Town, Wonderful Town, Candide, West Side Story

Chamber music

Prelude, Fugue and Riffs

Family

The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants

Education

Trained as a classical composer but was able to add elements of jazz and Latin dance rhythms

Style

Wrote classical and popular music, blended American, Spanish and Jewish elements with popular jazz and musical theatre elements. Orchestration FYI of colour and energy; the use of brass in high registers, and the balancing and spacing of chords, idiomatic writing. Dissonant harmonies, lyrical melodies became popular, rhythms based on dance and jazz