A Talk with Jamie Bernstein

A Talk with Jamie Bernstein on her memoir Famous Father Girl, a memoir of growing up Bernstein in conjunction with the exhibition Bernstein at 100 and Jewish Book Month. The book won several awards as Best Book of 2018. “The oldest daughter of revered composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein offers a rare look at her father on the centennial of his birth in a deeply intimate and broadly evocative memoir.”

About Jamie Bernstein

Jamie Bernstein is a writer, narrator, broadcaster and film maker who has transformed a lifetime of loving music into a career of sharing her knowledge and excitement with others.

Inspired by her father Leonard Bernstein’s lifelong impulse to share and teach, Jamie has devised multiple ways of communicating her own excitement about orchestral music. Beginning 15 years ago with “The Bernstein Beat,” a family concert about her father’s music modeled after his own groundbreaking Young People’s Concerts, Jamie has gone on to design, write and narrate concerts for worldwide audiences of all ages about the music of Mozart, Copland, Stravinsky, and many others.

Jamie travels the world as a concert narrator, appearing everywhere from Beijing to London to Vancouver. A frequent speaker on musical topics, Jamie has presented talks around the world, from conferences in Japan to seminars at Harvard University. In Spanish-speaking locations such as Madrid, Sevilla, and Caracas, Jamie narrates en español – thanks to her Chilean-born mother, Felicia Montealegre, who raised her children to be bilingual.

In her role as a broadcaster, Jamie has produced and hosted shows for radio stations in the United States and Great Britain. She has presented the New York Philharmonic’s live national radio broadcasts, as well as live broadcasts from Tanglewood.

Jamie is the co-director of a film documentary, Crescendo: the Power of Music — which focuses on children in struggling urban communities who participate in youth orchestra programs for social transformation inspired by Venezuela’s groundbreaking El Sistema movement. The film has won numerous prizes on the festival circuit, and is now viewable on iTunes. More about Crescendo: the Power of Music can be found at http://www.crescendofilmdoc.com

Jamie has also directed her father’s chamber opera, Trouble in Tahiti, in various locations around the country, including the Moab Music Festival, Festival del Sole in Napa, CA, and last summer at Tanglewood.

Jamie’s memoir, Famous Father Girl, was published by HarperCollins in June of 2018, as the Leonard Bernstein centennial celebrations were at their peak all around the world. The paperback was released in June of 2019.

Jamie also writes articles and poetry, which have appeared in such publications as Symphony, DoubleTake, the Nation, Opera News, and Musical America. She also edits “Prelude, Fugue & Riffs,” a newsletter about issues and events pertaining to her father’s legacy.

More about Jamie’s multifaceted life can be found on her website: jamiebernstein.net