My son wrote this Essay for school. When I read it I was not only impressed by his skill but felt overwhelming pride in him and wanted to share it with all of you. I know you will enjoy this as much as did.
Leonard Bernstein
http://cloutier-bernstein.webs.com/
Leonard Bernstein (August 25, 1918-October 14, 1990) composed,conducted,and played music for the piano in the 20th Century.He was born in Lawrenceburg,Massachusetts on August 25, 1918 and died in New York City,New York on October 14, 1990.Bernstein lived in America all of his life.He lived in many different cities and went to many different schools in Massachusetts. He also lived in and did a lot of his work in New York.Leonard Bernstein went to many school and had many teachers including Helen Coates.He attended the schools of,Garrison Grammar School and the Boston Latin School.After he graduated Boston Latin School in 1935, he went to study at Harvard University where he studied music with Edward Burlingame Hill and Waltor Piston who wrote many harmony and counterpoint textbooks.After studying at Harvard University he went to Philadelphia to study at the Curtis Institute of Music.At the Curtis Institute of Music he studied conducting with Fritz Reiner and studied orchestration with Randall Thompson.He also attended Berkshire Music Center after he left Curtis Institute of Music.At the Berkshire Music Center he studied conducting with Serge Koussevitzky.Leonard Bernstein was born as Louis Bernstein but he changed it to Leonard when he was 15 years old.In 1943 Bernstein was appointed assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic.The first signal of his soon-to-come success came on November 14 1943 when he was unexpectedley to be a substitute for the conductor Bruno Walter.The beginning of his brilliant career was marked when he conducted the New York City Center orchestra (1945-1947). From 1958 to 1969 Bernstein was a conductor for the New York Philharmonic becoming the first American-born holder of these posts.One of his most famous works was West Side Story originally produced on broadway in 1957.West Side Story was set in New York to tell the story of two members from rivaling gangs,The Sharks and The Jets.Two teenage street gangs containing members of different ethnic backgrounds.The members of The Sharks are people from Puerto Rico.The Sharks are taunted by The Jets who contain members of the white working-class group.The young boy,Tony,one of the jets has fell in love with Maria,the sister or Bernardo,who is the leader of the sharks.West Side Story was originally written as a broadway musical and has ran for 732 performances before going on tour.The famous musical has no movements.The tempo for the piece was slow at the beginning and towards the middle it sped up to fast and stayed that way toward the end.The dynamics varied from different parts,at the beginning it was soft and the middle was fast and the end was very fast.The mood for this piece was like action or something that kept you on you toes the entire piece of music.Another one of his famous works was The Rhapsody in Blue.It is a musical composition written by George Gershwin in 1924.Rhapsody in Blue was written for keyboard.It has no movements but two main parts.Parts one's tempo was a mixture of fast and slow.At the beginning of the piece it was slow or medium-slow and varied from medium-slow to medium-fast at some parts of the musical.Part 2 of Rhapsody in Blue's tempo was mainly fast.The mood for both parts of this piece was either sad or depressed or like a romantic sort of mood.The third piece I'm gonna include is Candide which is a piece that Bernstein conducted.It was originally first published in 1759 but has been translated(1947). The piece is about the lifestyle of a young man who lives in a sheltered life in an Edinic Paradise and is being indoctrinated with optimism by his mentor Pangloss.The piece of music describe the abrupt stop in his life, followed by his slow pain and disillusion as he faces the hardships of the outside world.Candide was written as an opera.The Candide Overture was fast paced from the very beginning and stayed like that through the whole piece.The piece was also very loud at the beginning but,got lower towards the middle and towards the end it got a lot louder.The mood for this piece seemed excited or like a determined sort of mood.I would like to list the sources that i used to help me with my project and give me knowledge on my composer Leonard Bernstein.I went to ask.com (http://www.ask.com/?o=0&l=dir) to answer the little questions i had and to find out what some of the words in the description meant.I also used wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/) which gave me a lot of information on my composer and is entire life and gave me the information i needed on the musical pieces like,West Side Story,Rhapsody in Blue,and Candide.I also went to biography.com http://www.biography.com/ and searched my composers name and found a bunch of pages about information on him and all the musical pieces he played,composed,and conducted.Lastly to finish up my research i went to Leonard Bernstein.com (http://www.biography.com/) and found even more information on his life his music and his life around him
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