Leonard Bernstein and 'Complex' Music Education

The paper intends to focus on some particular teaching strategies employed by Leonard Bernstein in his Young People's Concerts: selection of topics; segmentation of the chosen pieces of music; verbalisation of the content; ways of interacting with the students. The communicative strategy consisted in formulating a straightforward and captivating verbal text and in very carefully calibrating the pacing and breaks between moments of dialogue, musical pieces, and shots of the audience. The aim is to offer a lucid and objective analysis, highlighting criticalities and strengths, and above all to offer a hypothesis for the development of these methodologies in today's classrooms. What can and should be saved from that model? What can no longer be proposed and why? The presentation will start with the exposition and viewing of some very short extracts from the lectures concer, which highlight the above-mentioned aspects. These aspects will be compared with some modern methodologies of music education, within the framework of Edgar Morin's complexity theory. It will conclude with hypotheses for updating some of the strategies implemented by Bernstein, and considered still valid if modified and developed for the purpose of interdisciplinary, integrated and above all creative and applied teaching.