With Jamie Bernstein, New York, October 2011
“Only a society prepared by education can ever be truly a cultured society …Children must receive musical instruction naturally as food, and with as much pleasure as they derive from a ball game.” -Leonard Bernstein
In New York City, our friend Jamie Bernstein invited the Abreu Fellows to her home for an evening of musical conversations and splendid Venezuelan cuisine. It was a beautiful group of people coming together to celebrate music and friendship. Among her guests, Anne Fitzgibbon of the Harmony Project, composer John Deak, and musicians from Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She was a generous and gracious host to us all.
I told Jamie about my admiration for her father, how I am continually inspired by his legacy and vision. How I put together a Young People's Concert series for children when I was 12, writing scripts and taking pictures of portraits of Mozart and Beethoven from textbooks and turning them into slides. She showed us some of her childhood pictures, she told us about her dreams for the future of classical music. Having the opportunity to meet her was a beautiful experience.
A brilliant musician and writer, like her father, she is also a passionate champion for social justice. She is deeply involved in advancing music education through advocacy, collaboration, and meaningful artistic programming. As one of many contributions to the El Sistema movement in the United States, Jamie is currently working on a documentary featuring the children of Play-On Philly, a thriving nucleo in Philadelphia, led by Stanford Thompson, Abreu Fellow ‘10. See a short trailer here:
Jamie will be performing one of her signature Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic on November 12, 2011. The program features her father’s compositions and legacy to American culture and humanity.