The Postal Service will honor Leonard Bernstein on a new 34-cent postage stamp. The self-adhesive stamp will be issued at the New York Philharmonic's first free concert of the season on the Great Lawn in Central Park on Tuesday July 10, 2001 at 8:00 p. m. The stamp will be released to the public for the first time in New York City on July 10th and available to the rest of the nation on July 11th. Bernstein, born in 1918 in Lawrence, Mass., began piano lessons as a boy. He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia after graduating Harvard in 1939, earning a diploma in conducting in 1941. He began as an assistant conductor with the New York Philharmonic in August 1943. From 1945 to 1957, Bernstein was the music director of the New York City Symphony orchestra. In 1958, he was the music director of the New York Philharmonic, the first US born and trained conductor to hold that position. He retired from the Philharmonic in 1969. He astounded the world with his passion for music, from symphonies to Broadway shows. He was a conductor, composer, pianist, teacher and author. The stamp, designed by art director Howard Paine of Delaplane, VA. features a black-and-white photograph taken in June 1968 by Don Hunstein, then a photographer for Columbia Records.
