By Paul Freeman [2009 Interview]

He had genius. He had style... And he had a wondrous way of making classical music accessible and appealing to new generations.

Leonard Bernstein composed many timeless works, including "West Side Story," "Candide," "On The Town," "Wonderful Town," "Mass" and the "Songfest" cycle. Musicians continue to breathe new life into his moving, sophisticated, intricate music.

And symphony conductors still view Bernstein as the maestro, a peerless artist who was ever raising the bar, leading the orchestra with his irresistible, unabashed flair and vitality.

Bernstein's eldest daughter, Jamie, has appeared at many concerts and talks, offering insights and anecdotes, illuminating her legendary father's process.

"That's what I bring to the table," she told Pop Culture Classic. "I'm not a musician per se, at least not in public. But I'm so involved with this music, I've been hearing it all my life and I watched a lot of it being created. So I get to bring some extra information to the occasion."

She has also enriched his legacy through the publication of "Famous Father Girl -- A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein." It's a warm, intimate look at the man beneath the larger-than-life celebrity.

Jamie Bernstein enjoyed a unique childhood, surrounded by the arts. The family welcomed such cultural icons as the Kennedys, Stephen Sondheim, John Lennon, Mike Nichols, Jerome Robbins, Richard Avedon and Lauren Bacall into their home. And there was all that music, that exquisite music.

Leonard Bernstein would work into the night. He would rush to his children, play his latest composition on the piano and ask what they thought.

"I can't say we knew we were experiencing something monumental being created," Jamie Bernstein said. "After all, it was just our dad working … and there's nothing particularly glamorous about that. On the other hand, we also knew that it was not your average dad going to work.

"He loved being around people as much as he could. That's why it was always hard when that moment came when he had to cloister himself and gets the notes down.

"He enjoyed musical theater, precisely because it involved collaborating. So, even though you still have to be alone to write the notes, he could turn around and share them with somebody and work on it from there. That made the whole process of writing a show more fun for him than writing a symphonic work."

Bernstein appreciated good music, whatever the source. While elitists scorned rock 'n' roll as a fad, he utilized it as a teaching tool in his televised Young People's Concerts.

"We always had the radio on in the car, the pop station. My dad was really into the music that was on the radio back then, with The Beatles, The Stones and Motown. One day, The Kinks' song, 'You Really Got Me,' came on. He said, 'Hey! This song is in the Mixolydian mode! Do you know what a mode is?' 'No.'

"So he started telling us what a mode was and then, his next Young People's Concert was about modes. He went to the piano and played 'You Really Got Me' to demonstrate the Mixolydian mode."

While mid-20th century music academia declared that only those working in 12-tone compositions could be considered serious artists, Leonard Bernstein continued to fashion his melodic pieces.

"In the end, he was just going to do as he saw fit. I admire him for that," his daughter said. "The beauty for him was to be able to build bridges and experiment and not need to feel hemmed in by people's expectations. … Of course, nobody really cares anymore whether you write 12-tone music or not. So I think we're all pretty glad now that my father stuck to his guns, went ahead and wrote the music that he wanted to write."

Bernstein's enthusiasm was boundless, whether he was composing, teaching or vigorously conducting.

"He had that gift of bringing joy and exuberance to everything he did. He could be engaged in the most serious activity and bring the same intense joy to it as he could to something that normal people would consider fun," said Jamie Bernstein.

"I remember, in a Young People's Concert, he talked about 'The Marriage of Figaro' overture as being like a roller coaster ride. He loved roller coasters. He brought the same energy to conducting the overture as he brought to riding on a roller coaster. He didn't really make a distinction, in terms of the joy he got out of each."

Bernstein said her father was a compulsive teacher. "He couldn't help himself. He used to make a joke about his father, who was a Talmudic scholar. The joke was, if you were at the dinner table with Sam Bernstein and you said, 'Sam, would you please pass the salt?' He would say, 'Funny thing about salt. Lot's wife …' and then he would be off on some story from the Old Testament. But the truth of the matter was that, although my father and his siblings made fun of their dad, my father was exactly the same. He could not refrain from sharing some interesting fact or story that had to do with whatever he was feeling passionate about."

Her father was a great communicator. "It's just a thing some people have, where they can convey their own excitement about something to others. It was a lucky coincidence that he came along just as television did. They were really meant for each other."

Bernstein, who passed away at age 72 in 1990, believed that music could change the world. "He felt a tremendous pressure on himself to make that happen," said his daughter. "That started to weigh him down in his later years, because he was aware of his own expectations and the world's expectations and I think that made it harder for him to compose."

Narrating evenings of her father's music and carrying on his Young People's Concert tradition gives her great satisfaction.

"It's been gratifying and good for me, because I'm self-conscious about performing my music. So I found a terrific solution to my problem. What I do is talk about music. And that's something valuable, too.

"It turns out that I inherited this love of communicating what I'm excited about, which was so evident in my dad."

For more on Mr. Bernstein, visit: www.jamiebernstein.net.