Boston kicks off a year of U.S. tributes to Leonard Bernstein

BOSTON -- He was a wunderkind: the youngest music director ever to lead the New York Philharmonic and the genius behind the score to "West Side Story."

The late Leonard Bernstein would have turned 100 next year, and today, the Boston Symphony Orchestra kicks off a new season dedicated to the Massachusetts-born composer-conductor, one of America's most famous maestros.

Carnegie Hall gets into the act, too, launching its 2017-2018 season Oct. 4 with a Bernstein program by the Philadelphia Orchestra and music director Yannick Nezet-Seguin. And the New York Philharmonic will perform Bernstein's complete symphonic works in a centennial remembrance that starts Oct. 25.

Andris Nelsons, the Boston Symphony's music director, calls Bernstein an "iconic figure" who influenced generations -- including his own.

"Growing up in Latvia in the 1980s and '90s, Leonard Bernstein always loomed large in the hearts and minds of all of us who aspired to a life in music, including mine," Nelsons said in an email.

Conductor Leonard Bernstein, left, and composer Aaron Copland retire to a room backstage during a break in rehearsal to iron out details in the Copland composition "Connotations for Orchestra" on Sept. 21, 1962, in New York.Jacob Harris ~ Associated Press, file

"It was Bernstein's exuberance, passion and all-encompassing love of music that convinced all who encountered him that music was essential, affirming and necessary for a full life, in which beauty and inspiration ignite the very best of the human spirit," said Nelsons, now in his fourth season leading the BSO.

Things to know about Bernstein and the centennial celebrations:

The man

Bernstein was born to Russian-Jewish immigrants Aug. 25, 1918, in gritty Lawrence, Massachusetts. At age 10, the course of his life changed forever when an aunt gave the family an upright piano.

Bernstein's father ran a beauty-supply business, but the young musician wanted none of that. He studied at Harvard, the Curtis Institute and the Boston Symphony's summer retreat at Tanglewood in the Berkshires. Famed composers Aaron Copland and Serge Koussevitzky recognized his talents and mentored him.

Conductor Leonard Bernstein tells reporters July 26, 1971, in Washington the work he is preparing for the 1971 opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a "labor of love."Charles Harrity ~ Associated Press, file

He was just 25 when he got his big break, filling in for the New York Philharmonic last-minute to conduct a nationally broadcast concert. He became the Philharmonic's first U.S.-born conductor in 1958 and won a slew of Grammys, including a lifetime achievement award in 1985. Bernstein died five years later at 72 in New York City.

The maestro

Nelsons calls Bernstein a "trailblazer," and that's arguably his greatest legacy: winning global acclaim as an American at a time when European conductors dominated the international music scene.

Bernstein's 1943 ballet about a trio of sailors granted a day's shore leave in New York became the runaway Broadway smash hit "On The Town," later made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. He followed that with the movie score for "On the Waterfront"; the Tony Award-winning "Wonderful Town"; Broadway's "Candide"; and "West Side Story," the acclaimed musical that became a film in 1961.

A close friend of the Kennedys, Bernstein never forgot his Massachusetts roots. He spent four decades guest-conducting the Boston Symphony and wrote his "Divertimento" for the orchestra's own centennial in 1980.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, center left, stands with conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein as she shields light from her eyes while looking up at the stage in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on June 5, 1972, in Washington.Associated Press, file

The music

Tonight's Boston Symphony performance will highlight some of Bernstein's greatest hits, including the "Symphonic Dances" featured in "West Side Story."

But it also will celebrate Bernstein's versatility with renditions of his vocal music performed by renowned mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, who will host the season opener, and soprano Julia Bullock. Elizabeth Rowe, the orchestra's principal flute, will perform Bernstein's "Halil."

Carnegie's tribute next month will include "Symphonic Dances" and Bernstein's "On the Waterfront" Symphonic Suite.

The New York Philharmonic's salute -- performances of Bernstein's "Serenade" by superstar violinist Joshua Bell -- will be conducted by Alan Gilbert and Leonard Slatkin. And the Philadelphia Orchestra is devoting its Oct. 5 opening night to Bernstein, followed Oct. 12 to 15 with concerts that will riff through the entire "West Side Story" score.