Elmer Bernstein has been invited as guest composer-conductor to lead the BBC Orchestra on August 14, 2001 at the venerable BBC Promenade (“the Proms”) Concert Series. In addition to conducting his own acclaimed scores (click here for program), he has been invited to conduct the works of several composers whose work had an influential effect on his career as a film composer, including mentor Aaron Copeland. “Exiled Composers” is the theme of the series. Many of the composers honored that evening fled Europe as a result of the escalation of anti-Semitism and subsequent pogrom of Jewish intellectuals.

“As I was the first generation of my family to be born and raised in America, my first earliest cultural influences were quite naturally European and I am very proud to have been selected for this particular program,” said Bernstein.