Leonard Bernstein Auction: Memories Etched in Velvet

It was 1997, and Leonard Bernstein’s estate was going up for auction at Sotheby’s. Hundreds of items. Batons. Scores. His Bösendorfer grand piano (perfectly nicknamed “B-52”). Personal effects. Pieces of a genius tagged and catalogued and offered to the highest bidder, an opportunity to tangibly touch genius, or at least pretend that you can.

I had every reason to be in that room.

By my early 20’s I had already accumulated a life’s worth of musical hustle. Fresh out of Manhattan School of Music, a diplomaed classical flautist ready to play any major orchestral work you could throw at me, I had spent years layering experience upon experience, freelance gig upon gig, building a foundation that pointed somewhere even if I couldn’t yet name where. I had landed one of my first real Big City jobs as an executive assistant to a NYC-based conductor who had won several items in the Bernstein auction. Each step had prepared me for the next, and this step felt significant in ways I couldn’t entirely articulate.

I was also the girl with the wild long blonde curls, California sunshine still trailing behind me like a carry-on I hadn’t quite unpacked. New York was a city that wore its grit like a badge. I probably stuck out, but it was because of my own shine, fueled by youth and passion, beaming through that city dirt. I didn’t mind. The city had been teaching me, and I was a willing student.

My “Executive Assistant Assignment” that day: go to Sotheby’s, inspect the treasured items, bring them back safely. Don’t get lost, don’t stop for coffee, don’t pass go, don’t fuck up and make it directly back to the office.

I dressed up. I walked into Sotheby’s like I belonged there. I was escorted, escorted, to a private room, and that is where time got a little slippery.

The items were laid out on a table. Several batons, elegant and spare, their cases creased with age, a mustiness to the inside cushioning resonating of music halls and ringing with the echoes of applause. Musical scores accompanied them, laid out with handwritten penciled notes inviting me to turn pages and breathe in the passing thoughts of Lenny. I imagined him licking his fingers to turn the next page, pausing with the nub of a pencil to scribble a note to make it even better the next time through. My eyes continued to take in the table, already delighted, intrigued, but then… my eyes settled on the suit.

Lenny’s suit.

Black crushed velvet. While showing signs of being worn, it was still springy to the touch, a luxurious swath of fabric chosen to cloak a special soul. A white dress shirt lay alongside, slightly faded in the way that only lived-in things fade. Off-white, tobacco-infused, with the remnant shape of the man who once filled this attire. Together they were arranged on the table as if the man himself had just stepped out of it and it was still warm. Sleeves bent at the elbow, collar softly and casually open, as if his soul still inhabited it, still filling up every corner and crease, relaxing post-performance sans bow tie. He leans, reflecting on his latest concert, his legendary cigarette waving about dramatically to punctuate his monologue, an amazing length of ash miraculously still in place, oblivious to gravity. I stood there and could not move, could not breathe, as I felt the greatness in that room pulsating.

What was I supposed to inspect, exactly? I had no idea then, and I’m not sure I would know now. What I did instead was stand very still and let my imagination ignite and gallop freely as I was left alone in the room with these mystical pillars of Lenny. What was in the pockets? Had anyone checked the possible Chamber of Secrets hidden within this beautiful suit? What could be left as hints as to who this man was and what he thought? What cities had this suit seen? Vienna, Tokyo, Buenos Aires? What orchestras had been electrified by this man enshrined in crushed velvet, even before a single note was played? What divine forces had he summoned from the players before him, music crashing toward him, through him, a living lightning rod transmitting something holy out into the waiting world? With my imagination unleashed, visions and music swirled about; I felt like a child prattling on with an endless litany of questions and curiosity. What a treasure trove of inspiration!

I probably did the fastest inspection in Sotheby’s history. Partly because I was so young and had no specific past experience to draw upon. Partly because I just wanted to get out of there, to hold this incredible feeling before it dissolved into procedure and capture more one-on-one time with Lenny as I made my way back to the office.

My boss had made sure I understood: These items are extremely valuable. (Yes, THAT I know.) And: You are approved for a taxi. (MOTHERLOAD of an approval, I never ever took taxis, nor could I consider affording them on my own, so this was a treat. Another special moment to layer on to an extraordinary day.) And so, I climbed into a yellow cab somewhere on the Upper East Side, Lenny’s effects and his velvet suit making their way down through the city, my very famous passenger more than earning his cab fare.

I was still swimming in visions of global stages with Lenny, envisioning him center stage, conducting in his amazing crushed velvet suit and me, transported through time, watching, listening, filling my soul. As the blocks whisked by, he told me his stories, and I told him my dreams, the ones I hadn’t quite said out loud to anyone yet. That I wanted to build something, not just assist someone else’s vision but to create my own. That I wanted to be the one putting artists on stages, filling halls, making rooms hold their breath the way this room at Sotheby’s had just held mine. That the fire I felt standing over that velvet suit was not borrowed. It was my own. Together we rode with NYC sights blurring by through the smudged taxi windows.

I have made my entire life in the arts. Decades of concerts, of standing in wings and on stages, artists pouring themselves into music, of doing whatever it takes to put something transcendent in front of an audience to not only affect them, but the performers on stage, everyone within that space that day. My greatest pride, the thing I hold onto, is how the impact of those moments can affect someone else. Moving them. The music, the motion, the passion cracking something open that they may not have known was there. Not necessarily a passion for music, or even for the arts, but for something. A direction, a courage, a fire that needed exactly that moment to catch. Something that takes up permanent residence in them, replayed, retold, and returned to for the rest of their lives. Over the years, performers I’ve worked with, vendors, crew, people who happened to be in the room, have found me decades later to tell me about a particular concert, a single moment, even a conversation they had with me that became something they carried forward in ways neither of us could have predicted. Every time, it stops me in my tracks. A reminder of how something you don’t even realize you’re giving can become everything to someone else.

Lenny knew about that. God, did he know.

Those auction proceeds went to his BETA music education fund. Even in the dispersal of his belongings, he was still teaching, affecting people he couldn’t even see, still giving it forward. Three decades later, I can still feel that crushed velvet under my fingertips. Still smell the fabric. Still feel that particular silence of standing in a room with something that held, or rather embraced, greatness. That royal velvet signifying the value of the soul it once clothed.

That afternoon, Lenny did what great artists do even after they are gone. He reached forward through time and landed on someone he never knew, in a room he never sat in, and left her changed. I didn’t know exactly where the path would lead. But I understood, perhaps for the first time, that the passion itself was the point. Follow the music, keep that fire burning the way he had, and I was headed somewhere worth going.

Thank you, Lenny.