Leonard Bernstein

"Eleven. Exactly. One louder." - Nigel Tufnel in This Is Spinal Tap


Leonard Bernstein has inspired so many to follow their dreams and go into music. Here are 11 things that inspire me.

1. West Side Story -- the whole musical and for songs like: "I Have A Love" -- the melody throughout and this line: "I have a love, and it's all that I have. Right or wrong, what else can I do? " (youtube) 
2. West Side Story "One Hand, One Heart" (youtube)
3. Candide "Glitter and Be Gay" This is just so funny and brilliantly written (youtube - Kristin Chenoweth is amazing) as well as "THe Best of all Possible Worlds" and "Make Our Garden Grow", not to mention the Overture.
4. On the Town - capturing America after the war, in that nostalgic era
5. Lenny's ability to compose music for ballet -- things like Fancy Free and so many others
6. His Mass to open the Kennedy Center for the Arts, while dated, does pose great questions and challenge all that is sacred.
7. His passion for education, through his Young Persons' Concerts and his book "The Joy of Music". 1984 Garfield Cadets interpretation of WSS would be another example of inspiration
8. His skill to conduct a wide range of compositions
9. For being an American melting pot icon. Stan Kenton's arrangement of "America" is a fun representation of how diverse Bernstein's music can be and refreshed 
10. "Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable."
11. "This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before."