Leonard Bernstein was one of the twentieth-century's preeminent American composers. His collective creative output spans the range of musical genres to include works for orchestra, theater, ballet, film, solo voice, choral, chamber music, and piano. Among his best-known works are the musicals West Side Story, On the Town, and the operetta Candide.

As a performer, Bernstein remains the youngest person ever to serve as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. After his years there (1958-1969), Bernstein essentially invented the post of "international conductor", serving with the Vienna Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, and the festival orchestras of Tanglewood, Schleswig-Holstein, and Sapporo, Japan.

Through his rich, creative legacy Leonard Bernstein demonstrated the enduring power of art to explain, reveal, and connect. He trusted art to touch and move the human spirit; he believed in the power of the artistic process to propel learning.

Bernstein, whose intellectual curiosity continually led him outside the world of music, refused to be bound in the traditional categories of composer, musician, or conductor.

As a result, his career was more a series of creative projects than a single trajectory. Bernstein often collaborated with other artists in multiple media in order to achieve the fullest possible aesthetic and emotional impact.