Laying bare a life less ordinary

In a warts-and-all memoir, the daughter of American musical icon Leonard Bernstein recounts growing up and learning to live with the legacy of a flawed genius. China Daily caught up with her on a recent visit to Beijing, Fang Aiqing reports. 

Leonard Bernstein is best known as the late American conductor, composer and pianist, who lit up 20th-century music.

He also shared his knowledge by narrating musical masterpieces to help the younger audiences find their enthusiasm for the art and illuminated the path for those looking to find their voice in the field.

However, Famous Father Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein, written by his firstborn daughter, Jamie, and published upon the centennial of his birth in 2018, reveals an alternative side to the maestro and what it was like growing up in an exceptional family like the Bernsteins.

Leonard Bernstein rose to fame overnight, filling in last-minute for Bruno Walter, the guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic, who was forced to cry off sick before a concert at Carnegie Hall on Nov 14, 1943.