SFist Interviews Jamie Bernstein

Here in SF we sometimes see Michael Tilson Thomas as the heir to your father's throne, more or less. Bernstein is mentioned as his mentor, and like your dad, MTT is doing all this outreach and education to bring in more people to classical music. Do you see your father's legacy in MTT's work? Did you try to get him involved in this celebration (of course, on top of his NY concert homage next fall?)

Jamie Bernstein: I reckon SF isn't the only place that sees MTT as the heir to LB. There are so many reasons for their connectedness, but Michael (who is a good friend of mine) isn't particularly interested at this point (if he ever was) in going out of his way to point out the connection. I think by now he prefers to have his accomplishments taken in their own context.

Your dad was very East Coast, but what was his relationship with San Francisco music scene?

Jamie Bernstein: Tough to answer this one. He certainly came through there from time to time, but I don't have any direct knowledge on this subject.

Bernstein was openly gay in a much less tolerant time than now, something many San Franciscans are proud of. Were you surprised when he came out?

Jamie Bernstein: Yes, there's no question it was a far, far more difficult time in which to come out -- and my father was essentially a traditional homebody, a family man kinda guy, and although his gayness was real enough, he had a terrible time sustaining the lifestyle -- especially at the expense of his wife and his long-established domestic life. It kind of ripped him up once he'd gone so far as to make the break -- and in fact he couldn't sustain the new lifestyle; within a year of leaving his wife, he came back. But simultaneously with their rapprochement came her diagnosis of lung cancer, and within the year after that, she was dead. Tough times all around.

Was I surprised when my father came out? I guess I was surprised that he took the plunge; I was not surprised that he was gay. I was in my early 20s at the time; I was involved in the human potential movement and had ever so many gay friends, so I was very supportive of his attempts to arrive at some truth for himself. But my youthfulness prevented me from fully understanding the effect on my mother, who was purely devastated by what she perceived as my father's abandonment and humiliation of her.

The hot topic on the classical scene is Gustavo Dudamel, and have you seen the youtube videos of his orchestra playing your dad's Mambo like a marching band. He did that in SF in November, (and is coming back with the San Francisco Symphony in March, but it's sold out!) How do you react to it?

Jamie Bernstein: When I saw that video on YouTube, I jumped right out of my skin. I knew, even in that tiny frame on my laptop screen, that here was the Real Deal. I went out of my way to see Dudamel conduct the Simon Bolivar Orchestra in LA a few months later. A few weeks after that, Gustavo came to NYC, first with the Bolivar ork and then with the NY Phil. I went to all the concerts. They were sensational. I'm a shameless groupie! Last week when Caroline Kennedy wrote her Op-Ed piece about supporting Barack Obama, I shivered to read the same sentence I had been saying about Gustavo Dudamel: now, at last, I know how people used to feel when they witnessed my father.

This year is rich in anniversary: 100th of Messiaen, 90th of Bernstein, two years ago was Steve Reich's 70th, we celebrated Philip Glass's 70th with his new Appomattox at the SF Opera last Fall: where do you see your dad in the 20th century music? You said: "During his lifetime, if you did not write difficult, atonal music you were not taken seriously in academic circles. My father thought highly of those circles and wanted to be accepted by them."

Jamie Bernstein: Yes -- and I reckon we're glad my dad took his risks, wrote from his heart and left us with all his beautiful music, which only sounds better the further away we get from the 20th Century.

We wrote here about Alex Ross' book, who would have liked your dad to compose more! He says "experts agreed that he had frittered away his gift amid glitzy conducting dates, media appearances, and "radical chic" parties at his apartment in Manhattan." Is it true that if he conducted less, he would have written more?

Jamie Bernstein: OUCH: that damn Radical Chic thing is the albatross around our family's weary neck. To think that my father wandered into an event he had nothing to do with...! It was my mother's fund-raiser for the Panther 21, who had been jailed on totally trumped-up charges concocted by the FBI, as we found out years later through the Freedom of Information Act. The judge eventually tossed the whole case right out of his court. But meanwhile, the defendants' families needed to be fed -- hence my mother's fundraiser, which was crashed by a) Charlotte Curtis, society editor of the NYT; b) Tom Wolfe, writing for the infant New York Magazine -- there had specifically been no press invited to the event; and c) my father, who burst in all cranked up from his "Fidelio" rehearsal at the Met, and took over the room, as was his wont ... and the rest is dreck. We also found out through the Freedom of Information Act that all those Jewish Defense League guys, picketing outside our building after Charlotte Curtis wrote her pissy little editorial in the Times, were -- you guessed it -- FBI plants. What an awful time that was.

But to answer your question: look, some people say Bernstein should have spent more time composing operas. Others say he should have written more Broadway shows. Still others think he should have been conducting exclusively. But looking back on it now, aren't we just plain amazed by the body of work Leonard Bernstein produced in his 72 years?! The concerts, the recordings, the home videos, the television shows, the educational projects, the books, the humanitarian work -- and all his extraordinary compositions! We have it all to enjoy and admire. Why be churlish and say he should have done more of this and less of that? We should all be lucky enough to produce a quarter of the worthy goods my dad gave the world -- and that goes for Alex Ross too. "Experts agreed..."? Please.

Can you describe the relationship with the Israel Philharmonic, why it was close to your dad's heart? How did this come about? How did you decide on these pieces in Saturday's program?

Jamie Bernstein: My father was THERE at the birth of Israel! Nothing could have been more exciting for him, and he never lost that sense of excitement about the place: its pioneer spirit, the miraculous drawing of fertility from the desert, the people's passion for music. He adored the IPO, and deeply respected each player's personal history. As for how we decided on the pieces we'll be playing: conductor Michael Barrett and I felt that my father's Broadway music expresses that same spirit of joy and energy, the same love of people and collaborative fun, that he experienced in Israel. They both mirror his soul.

How about the crew who's going to participate in the celebration: conductor Michael Barrett, or Rita Morena? How did they get on board?

Jamie Bernstein: That's Rita MorenO, with an O. Since Rita played Anita on screen and lives in the Bay Area (as I understand it), she was a natural guest star to invite to our concert.

Our conductor, Michael Barrett, studied conducting with my father, and later was his assistant conductor for many years, both in the US and abroad. Michael and I are best buddies. Our families have grown up alongside each other; we each got married within a year of each other; we celebrate holidays all together; our kids go to the same school. About ten years ago, Mike and I were invited to develop a kids' concert, just like the ones my dad used to do on TV with the NY Phil -- except this time about Leonard Bernstein himself. We came up with "The Bernstein Beat" -- a family concert that we've taken literally all over the world (including San Francisco in 2000). Since then, Mike and I have come up with a new family concert almost every year. He conducts, I narrate, and we have so much fun.

You're here to celebrate your father, but what else keeps you busy? What do you do when you don't celebrate your dad's legacy?

Jamie Bernstein: I'm a writer, narrator and broadcaster. I do a lot of radio work -- mostly for the classical station here in NYC, WQXR, but I've also done many shows for BBC Radio 3. I write articles, poetry -- and when nobody's looking or listening, I write songs. I have two kids. My daughter Frankie's off in college, but my son Evan is still in high school and living at home, so I do a lot of mom stuff. My brother and sister each have adorable young daughters, so I'm a passionate auntie. I have the best dog in the world, a noble mutt named Shiloh. I go dancing and play tennis and scrabble. A lot of scrabble. Every year I go to Moab Utah, where Michael Barrett and his wife Leslie Tomkins started a chamber music festival, so I have a nice built-in excuse to go out there and hike among the red rocks and recharge my spiritual battery.

And there you have it!

Thank you so much!