August 25: Leonard Bernstein

World-renowned composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein was born on this date in 1918 in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Bernstein was the long-time music director of the New York Philharmonic and composed the music for West Side Story, among other hit Broadway shows. He became an American household fixture with his televised Young People’s Concerts (1958 to 1973), which showed his passionate conducting style and greatly raised the nation’s literacy about classical music. Bernstein was a closeted, married gay man for most of his life, but left the closet as the gay liberation movement made strides in the 1970s, by which time his fame was well-established. He was an outspoken advocate of world peace, an opponent of the Vietnam War, and a supporter of the civil rights cause. His Jewishly themed pieces included two symphonies, “Jeremiah” (1943) and “Kaddish” (1963).

“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” —Leonard Bernstein