UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Czech National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by John Mauceri and joined by multiple Grammy-Award-winning singer Isabel Leonard, will celebrate the centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth in a concert at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27, in Eisenhower Auditorium.
The all-Bernstein-compositions program includes meditations from “Mass,” symphonic dances from “West Side Story,” vocal selections from the cycle of American poems “Songfest” and the opera “A Quiet Place,” the overture from the operetta “Candide” and more.
Bernstein not only was one of the first American-born-and-educated conductors to become internationally famous, he also was a composer, a pianist and an educator who transcended the classical music field to achieve iconic status in the 20th century.
Mauceri was a mentee of and conducting fellow with Bernstein, and mezzo-soprano Leonard has been applauded for her interpretations of Bernstein repertoire.
The distinguished and varied career of Mauceri has taken him not only to the world’s greatest opera companies and symphony orchestras, but also to the musical stages of Broadway and Hollywood. He has won Grammy, Tony, Olivier, Drama Desk, Emmy, Billboard and other noteworthy awards.
Mauceri was, in turn, the music director of Pittsburgh Opera, Teatro Regio (Turin, Italy), Scottish Opera (Glasgow) and Washington (D.C.) Opera. He was the founding director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, where he conducted more than 300 concerts attended by a total of four million people. Mauceri conducted the world premiere of Bernstein’s “A Quiet Place.” From 2006–2013, he was the chancellor of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Leonard has performed with many of the finest opera companies, including the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago and San Francisco Opera. She has worked with famous conductors in appearances with the Cleveland, Chicago Symphony and Boston Symphony orchestras plus the New York, Los Angeles and Vienna philharmonics. She’s also in demand as a recitalist and is on the board of trustees at Carnegie Hall.
“Leonard is a true treasure,” wrote a critic for New York Classical Review, “… immensely talented and charismatic … already one of the world’s leading artists though still relatively early in her career.”