Bernstein at 100 Celebrated at the Center
For 18 years, John Mauceri, world-renowned conductor, educator, and writer, worked closely with Leonard Bernstein and conducted many of the composer’s premieres at Bernstein’s request. On Tuesday, March 5 at 7:30 p.m. Mauceri leads the Czech National Symphony Orchestra (CNSO) with Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard in a Presenting Series concert part of the worldwide centennial celebration of Bernstein’s birth.
The CNSO has earned an enviable reputation among both Czech and Europe’s top symphonic ensembles. Renowned for its versatility, the orchestra annually presents a broad program ranging from classical music concerts to contemporary genres, film scores, jazz, and musicals. Composers, conductors, and performers such as Ennio Morricone, Lalo Schifrin, James Morrison, Branford and Wynton Marsalis, Danny Elfman, Vince Mendoza, Christian Lindberg, Chick Corea, and Vladimir Cosma repeatedly come back to Prague to either record with the orchestra or perform in the beautiful Smetana Hall at Prague’s Municipal House, the home concert stage of the orchestra. The celebratory 100 Years of Leonard Bernstein program is the highlight of their current U.S. tour concert season.
John Mauceri served as music director of the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy and the Scottish Opera, and is the first American ever to have held the post of music director of an opera house in either Great Britain or Italy. He is the Founding Director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and on Broadway, he was co-producer of On Your Toes and served as musical supervisor for Hal Prince’s production of Candide, as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Song and Dance with Bernadette Peters. He also conducted the orchestra for the film version of Evita.
A multiple Grammy Award-winner, Isabel Leonard continues to thrill audiences both in the opera house and on the concert stage in repertoire that spans from Vivaldi to Mozart to Thomas Ades. She has appeared with some of the foremost conductors of her time including Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nézét-Seguin, Franz Welser-Möst, and Plácido Domingo.
