ABSTRACT
O n December 7, 2012, an article, “The Maestro of Flushing,” appeared in the New York Times. I was about to lead the college orchestra and combined choirs, almost three hundred musicians, in a performance of Mahler’s massive “Resurrection” Symphony in the beautiful Fifth Avenue Church of the Heavenly Rest. “Mr. Peress,” the Times reported, “called it a heady undertaking at this ripe time in his career, one that has him reflecting on his own life and his relationship with his mentor, Leonard Bernstein, who loved performing Mahler, a fellow conductor-composer of Jewish origin.”
