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Bernstein Meets Broadway
Collaborative Art in a Time of War
Author Carol J. Oja, Conductor Judith Clurman, Essential
Voices USA
Billie Allen, Jamie Bernstein and Phyllis Newman
SEPTEMBER 15 at 7:00 PM.
Barnes & Noble
Celebrate the publication of Bernstein
Meets Broadway: Collaborative Art in a Time of War (Oxford
University Press) at Barnes and Noble, 86th Street &
Lexington Avenue, New York City, on Monday
September 15, 2014 at 7PM.
Author Carol
J. Oja, Harvard
University’s William Powell Mason Professor of Music and
American Studies and the New York Philharmonic’s Leonard
Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence, will be on hand to sign
copies of her book and lead an exciting panel of
distinguished artists. She will be joined by music director Judith
Clurman and
members of Essential
Voices USA, special guests Billie
Allen, Jamie Bernstein, Phyllis Newman, singers
Diana Rose Becker, Arlo Hill, Daniel Schwait, Jorell
Williams and pianist Kurt Crowley. Selections from the
Leonard Bernstein (music), Betty Comden & Adolph Green
(lyrics) musical On The Town will be performed. The audience
will be invited to sing-along. There is no admission fee.
When Leonard Bernstein first arrived in New York City, he
was an unknown artist working with other brilliant twenty
somethings, notably Jerome Robbins, Betty Comden, and Adolph
Green. By the end of the 1940s, these artists were world
famous. In Bernstein Meets Broadway: Collaborative Art in a
Time of War, award-winning author Carol J. Oja examines the
early days of Bernstein's career during World War II,
centering around the debut in 1944 of the Broadway musical
On the Town and the ballet Fancy Free. Bernstein and his
visionary friends focused on urban contemporary life and
popular culture, featuring as heroes the itinerant sailors
who bore the brunt of military service. They were
provocative both artistically and politically. In an era of
race riots and Japanese internment camps, they featured
African American performers and a Japanese American
ballerina, staging a model of racial integration. Rather
than accepting traditional distinctions between high and low
art, Bernstein's music was wide-open, inspired by everything
from opera and jazz to cartoons. Oja shapes a wide-ranging
cultural history that captures a tumultuous moment in time
“When
Bernstein, Comden, Green, and Robbins created On the Town in
1944, they were twenty-somethings who ended up as BFF’s.
Their audacious talent was breathtaking. The first
production of On the Town—appearing towards the end of World
War II—marked an important moment in the long march for
civil rights in performance.” --Carol Oja
Carol J Oja and I co-directed Harvard University's landmark
Leonard Bernstein: Boston to Broadway Festival. I am happy
to be collaborating with her again and thrilled to celebrate
the publication of her wonderful book. --Judith Clurman
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