Why do our music-loving hearts still leap with joy at the Overture to Candide? Why do our toes continue to tap irresistibly to the dance rhythms of On the Town and Wonderful Town? Why do we still feel moved to our souls by the music of West Side Story?  Leonard Bernstein had a gift for combining the sophistication of symphonic music with the tuneful gusto of Broadway.  Jamie Bernstein, the famed composer's eldest daughter, celebrates the great legacy of Bernstein's music in her symphonic pops program Bernstein on Broadway, taking us on a colorful tour of four of her father's best-loved musicals. In her role as narrator, Jamie provides background information, personal anecdotes and brief synopses for the audience. Together with an orchestra and four top soloists, she helps bring Bernstein's theatre music gloriously to life.

In addition to her work as a narrator and frequent broadcaster, Jamie Bernstein also presents a coterie of musical concerts for young people from her acclaimed Bernstein Beat to programs highlighting Copland and Mozart.  She also appears with symphonies as a narrator for classic works like Walton's Facade, Copland's A Lincoln Portrait and Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 3, Kaddish.

Jamie Bernstein is a narrator, writer and broadcaster who has transformed a lifetime of loving music into a career of sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm with others.  She grew up in an atmosphere bursting with music, theatre and literature. Her father, composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein, together with her mother, the pianist and actress Felicia Montealegre, and their legions of friends in the arts, created a spontaneous, ebullient household that turned Jamie into a dyed-in-the-wool cultural enthusiast.

Jamie's symphony concert, "Bernstein on Broadway", produced with conductor Michael Barrett, which has enjoyed success with the Vancouver Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, the Springfield Symphony and the Toledo Symphony will be presented in 2007-2008 by the Minnesota Orchestra, the Phoenix Symphony and the San Antonio Symphony. 

Replicating her father's lifelong compulsion to share and teach, Jamie has written and produced several concerts for families and young people on the music of Copland, Mozart, Bernstein and others.  The acclaimed program "The Bernstein Beat", a family concert about her father modeled after his own groundbreaking Young People's Concerts has been presented by Carnegie Hall Family Concerts, the Caramoor Festival and orchestras across the country. 

Jamie also travels the world as a concert narrator, appearing with orchestras from Philadelphia to Minnesota, Havana to Beijing. In addition to her own scripts, Jamie also performs standard concert narrations, such as Walton's "Facade," Copland's "A Lincoln Portrait" and her father's Symphony No. 3, "Kaddish." She is a frequent speaker on musical topics, including in-depth discussions of her father's works.

In her role as a broadcaster, Jamie has produced and hosted numerous shows for radio stations in the United States and Great Britain. In addition to hosting several seasons of the New York Philharmonic's live national radio broadcasts, Jamie has presented several series for New York's classical station, 96.3 FM WQXR, including annual live broadcasts from Tanglewood. Most recently, Jamie presented a series for BBC Radio 3, "Fast Machine," about the music scene in New York City.

In addition to writing her own scripts and narrations, Jamie writes articles and poetry, which have appeared in such publications as Symphony, DoubleTake and Gourmet.