In addition to works for orchestra and ensemble ( Prelude, Fugue and Riffs (1949), Mass: A Theater Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers (1971), and Concerto for Orchestra: Jubilee Games (1989) amongst them), he composed two operas ( Trouble in Tahiti (1952) and A Quiet Place (1983)), two additional ballets with Robbins after Fancy Free ( Facsimile (1946) and Dybbuk (1975)), a film soundtrack for On The Waterfront (1954), and four Broadway scores in addition to On The Town ( Wonderful Town (1953), Candide (1956), his best-known work West Side Story (1957), and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (1976)). Over the course of his career, both Bernstein's output and impact were enormous. It was with the NYP that he created his popular Young People's Concerts, a musical series broadcast on CBS that endured for fourteen seasons. The peak of his career was to arrive in 1958, however, when he assumed the directorship of the New York Philharmonic: a position that was subsequently maintained across 11 years, nearly 300 recordings, and countless performances. By 1956 Bernstein had landed a contract with the Columbia Masterworks label, with whom he remained extremely productive until a move to Deutsche Grammophon in the 1970s. A two-year tenure as music director of the New York City Symphony Orchestra was initiated in 1945, after which followed various conducting assignments, including events in Tel Aviv and Milan, as well as extensive teaching work at Tanglewood and Brandeis University. Also in 1944 was the premier of the ballet Fancy Free, created in collaboration with choreographer Jerome Robbins such was its success that its authors were inspired to adapt it into a Broadway musical, and before the year was over On The Town was packing in audiences. 1: Jeremiah, performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The following year, Bernstein publicly established himself as a composer with the premier of Symphony No. At the age of only 25 he landed an assistant conductor's position with The New York Philharmonic, and after serving as a last-minute replacement for a performance (and associated radio broadcast) at Carnegie Hall in 1943, the demand for his talents took off like a bat out of hell. After Harvard he studied piano, conducting and orchestration at the Curtis Institute of Music, as well as attending the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Tanglewood Institute. It was while attending Harvard that Bernstein was given his earliest opportunity to undertake what would eventually become the primary source of his fame, when he assumed the role of conductor for some incidental music he had composed for Aristophanes’ The Birds. His musical training began on the piano and his first attempts at composition were made at a young age, although he initially faced the opposition of his middle-class parents in the pursuit of such a frequently-unrewarding career. One of classical music's most influential figures for the 20th century, Leonard Bernstein was born to Jewish immigrants and raised in Boston, where he attended both the Garrison and Boston Latin schools. Remains: Buried, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NYĮxecutive summary: Conductor, New York Philharmonic
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