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Dateline: Bloomington by Jamie Bernstein
Posted April 15, 2025
Dateline: Bloomington
By Jamie Bernstein
You wouldn’t necessarily guess that Leonard Bernstein and Bloomington, Indiana, developed a robust connection that endures to this very day – but it’s true. And in the last week of March, I had the good fortune of experiencing it for myself.
[Photo courtesy of the Indiana University Archives]
The adventure began at the Fairview Elementary School, which for many years was an Artful Learning school; it used that ingenious model, founded by my brother Alexander and inspired by our dad’s philosophies of education. While Fairview has evolved into an arts magnet school, so much of the Artful Learning DNA endures within those walls. Many of the teachers from the AL years are still there, which helps to keep the connection vibrant and strong. In the school’s front hall, there still hangs a magnificent mixed-media artwork: a creative tribute to Fairview and Artful Learning itself, designed and executed by Fairview students. I could hardly tear myself away from it.
The following morning, my activities began at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. Prof. Constance Cook Glen invited me to present my “Leonard Bernstein: Citizen Artist” talk to her class, “Music of War and Peace.” The students were undergraduates: from business and ballet majors to track and baseball athletes. I loved that! My talk – and of course, everything about Bernstein himself -- is ideal for that healthy mix of backgrounds and interests.
Afterward, Philip Ponella – the Wennerstrom-Phillips Music Library Director & Chief Digital Officer -- took me to the library to see the latest iteration of their display of contents from my father’s Connecticut studio. Phil’s team of helpers had put together an ingenious array of artifacts: everything from Bernstein’s stand-up desk to a Grammy Award (that he himself had broken) to a, for me, very triggering plastic bottle of Afrin nose spray.
[Photos by Rich Janzaruk/Herald Times]
From there, I was directed to the “well-advised lunch” -- sandwiches and conversation with students of Prof. Alain Barker, Director of Entrepreneurship and Career Development at the Jacobs School of Music. The lively group asked excellent questions that kept me talking away for quite a while. (Boy, I sure can talk.) When it was over, I walked in the almost-warm early spring weather back to the comfortable and very large house the Jacobs School of Music had given me for the week; I felt like a sparrow in an eagle’s nest – but I loved every minute in that house.
That evening, there was a dinner at the epicenter of the Bernstein-Bloomington connection: the house of former Dean of the Jacobs School of Music, Charles Webb. Charlie Webb! It was Charlie, and his wife Kenda, and their four rambunctious sons, who won my father’s heart when he was there for two months in 1982, working on his opera A Quiet Place. The Webbs struck my father as the quintessential, goodly, godly, midwestern family – and they were. But they had a wild hair, as evidenced by their cheerfully putting up with all the crazy stuff my father said (the profanities!) and did (lie on top of their Steinway in his cowboy boots!) while he was there. Bernstein wrote several pieces dedicated to Charlie and his family, including the sublime “Mr. and Mrs. Webb Say Goodnight,” from Arias & Barcarolles.
[Jamie Bernstein with Phil Ponella and Malcolm Webb at the home of Charles Webb]
Charlie is 92 and frail, but still hosting guests in his house, and he even guided us in an eloquent pre-dinner blessing. I felt my father’s spirit very strongly that night, hovering above us -- possibly on the wooden crossbeams, where the socks and underwear used to get snagged during the Webb boys’ daily game of catch with the dog…
[Photo taken by Malcolm Webb]
The next day, I visited an earnest pod of conducting students in the morning, followed by lunch with the Dean of the Jacobs School of Music, Abra Bush – a truly fabulous person; the Jacobs School is so lucky to have her at the helm. And then it was sound check time for the main event of my visit: my friend, the brilliant pianist Spencer Meyer, currently teaching at Jacobs, was to perform all of the piano sketches from Bernstein's four collections he called “Anniversaries.” Each piece is dedicated to a person in the composer’s life – so my job was to provide information about those people – friends, relatives, colleagues, lovers – thereby drawing a reflected portrait of Bernstein himself. Spencer and I had presented this concert once before, and we were thrilled to have the chance to do it again. The side of the stage was the perfect spot from which to revel in those beautiful, pensive pieces, so sensitively performed by Spencer. And I had one, goofy turn at the piano myself – playing the one-hand part in my father's truly hilarious wedding gift to Adolph Green and Phyllis Newman.
[Jamie Bernstein and Spencer Meyer]
After the concert, Professor Connie Glen threw us a dinner party! More joy, more toasts, great food, and much fascinating, urgent conversation. These are not dull times on university campuses.
The next morning in my aerie, I took one last opportunity to do my stretches on the rug near the bay window, where I could look out on an enormous magnolia tree exploding with waxy pink blossoms. That midwestern college town certainly did live up to its name.