Bernstein Centennial March 16 @ 7:30pm – March 17 @ 2:00pm, 2019 Steven Schick, conductor Laurie San Martin nights bright days Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 8 Leonard Bernstein Symphony No. 3 (Kaddish) After meeting Laurie San Martin, one this country’s most important ebullient composers, we’ll experience the lightness of a classical great—the seldom-heard 8th Symphony of Beethoven—and conclude with Leonard Bernstein’s extraordinary and poignant Symphony No. 3 (Kaddish), with chorus, soprano soloist and narrator. The Bernstein piece, named for the Jewish prayer for the dead, was dedicated to the late President John F. Kennedy and premiered in the days after of his assassination in 1963. It is a reflection simultaneously on the loss of a president and the loss of a generation of European Jews. It is powerful music, but also hopeful.