Trapped between an id that urged him to flamboyance and a super-ego that demanded that he be serious and conventional, Leonard Bernstein struggled between those two poles even as he produced some of the world’s most memorable music.
Professionally, he veered from composing Symphony No; 1: “Jeremiah” and Candide to “Maria,” “Somewhere” and “America.” And personally, he refused the advice that he change Bernstein to a less Jewish-sounding name but responded to the guidance that he give up his homosexuality by marrying a woman.
As a result, Bernstein never reached his personal goal of being remembered in the same vein as figures like Mozart, worried that his rising fame as an animated conductor overshadowed his compositions and he slipped into addiction and bouts of depression.
Musician, psychiatrist and storyteller Dr. Richard Kogan returns to The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center to explore the life of this uninhibited, exuberant man who craved public adulation yet was mired in his loneliness. He will punctuate his lively and humorous presentation by playing beloved favorites from West Side Story, including “Somewhere,” “Maria” and “America.”
Trained in piano at Juilliard and psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Kogan has researched the links between music, healing and genius for decades and delivers performances/lectures about them - across the world. Professor of Psychiatry, Co-Director of the Human Sexuality Program and Artistic Director of the Music and Medicine program at Weill Cornell, he maintains a private practice in New York.