- Person
- Leonard Bernstein
- Lived
- 1918–1990
- Field
- Music
- From
- American
The story
In the early 1980s a new and deadly disease was spreading among gay men in American cities, and many public figures avoided the subject. Leonard Bernstein, then in his sixties and one of the most famous musicians in the world, was frustrated that the Reagan administration was so slow even to acknowledge the epidemic, let alone fund research and patient care. He decided to help however he could.
On 30 April 1983, at Madison Square Garden in New York, he took part in one of the earliest HIV and AIDS fundraisers, a benefit that raised more than 250,000 dollars for the Gay Men's Health Crisis. Bernstein conducted the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Orchestra, with the mezzo-soprano Shirley Verrett singing The Star-Spangled Banner. That June, in a written statement for an AIDS benefit in Houston, he insisted that AIDS was not the gay plague it was so often called but part of the human condition, a disease that must be universally researched and defeated.
He kept returning to the cause. On 8 November 1987 he joined Leontyne Price, Marilyn Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, Yo-Yo Ma and others at Carnegie Hall for Music for Life, another benefit for the Gay Men's Health Crisis, dedicated to Dr Mathilde Krim and her work at the American Foundation for AIDS Research, known as amfAR.
According to the Leonard Bernstein Office, a benefit built around his Serenade raised the first million dollars for amfAR's community-based clinical trials programme. That programme went on to create a nationwide network of 45 cooperating HIV and AIDS clinical research centres, bringing trials of new treatments to patients in their own communities.
Bernstein also used his standing to protest. On 15 November 1989 he refused the National Medal of Arts from President George H. W. Bush, in protest against the withdrawal of a National Endowment for the Arts grant for a New York exhibition of art about AIDS. At a time when people with AIDS faced fear and stigma, his public support helped bring money, attention and dignity to their cause.
Why it matters
Bernstein's advocacy and fundraising helped launch research and care when people with AIDS had few prominent allies, including seed money for a national network of community clinical trial centres.
About Leonard Bernstein
Conductor & composer; "West Side Story," New York Philharmonic, music educator to a generation through the Young People's Concerts.
More about Leonard Bernstein
- Leonard Bernstein turned a prize into a school programmeWhen Leonard Bernstein won Japan's Praemium Imperiale in 1990, he used the 100,000 dollar prize to start an arts-in-education project that became the Artful Learning programme.
- Leonard Bernstein taught classical music to millions on TVLeonard Bernstein, the first American-born music director of the New York Philharmonic, wrote and hosted 53 televised Young People's Concerts, shown in more than 40 countries.
- Leonard Bernstein brought Mahler's symphonies back to lifeLeonard Bernstein was a critical figure in the modern revival of Gustav Mahler, recording his symphonies and helping make them central to the orchestral repertoire.
- Bernstein's Harvard lectures linked music and languageIn 1973 Leonard Bernstein gave six Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard, The Unanswered Question, applying ideas from linguistics to explain how music communicates.
- Bernstein's Ode to Freedom marked the Berlin Wall's fallOn Christmas Day 1989 Leonard Bernstein conducted Beethoven's Ninth in East Berlin to celebrate the fall of the Wall, changing the word joy to freedom for an audience of about 100 million.
- Leonard Bernstein founded the Pacific Music Festival in 1990In his final summer, 1990, Leonard Bernstein founded the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, which has since trained more than 3,200 young musicians.
- Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story reinvented the musicalLeonard Bernstein's score for West Side Story, which opened on Broadway in 1957, fused jazz, Latin rhythms and symphonic technique and is still performed around the world.
- Bernstein's Young People's Concerts taught millions musicFrom 1958 to 1972 Leonard Bernstein presented 53 televised Young People's Concerts, often called the most influential music education series ever produced for television.
- Leonard Bernstein conducted to support Amnesty InternationalLeonard Bernstein gave benefit concerts for Amnesty International in Munich in 1976 and Berlin in 1979, and set up a fund in his wife's name to aid human rights activists.
- Leonard Bernstein led a Journey for Peace to HiroshimaIn 1985 Leonard Bernstein took the European Community Youth Orchestra on a Journey for Peace tour, performing at the Hiroshima Peace Ceremony on the 40th anniversary of the bombing.
Sources
- Leonard Bernstein Wikipedia
- Leonard Bernstein: Humanitarian Leonard Bernstein Office
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.