Brandeis University names arts festival after Leonard Bernstein

Brandeis University is renaming its annual arts festival after Leonard Bernstein, a former faculty member. Bernstein taught music at Brandeis from 1951 to 1955. In 1952 the bisexual composer created the Brandeis Festival of the Creative Arts, which featured the premiere performance of his one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti. "Leonard Bernstein was certainly one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, and Brandeis is proud to formalize the legacy to our university through the naming of the festival he founded," Brandeis president Jehuda Reinharz said in a statement this week. This year's installment of the five-day festival, which starts April 13, features concerts, plays, and other performances by more than 150 artists, including the Boston Opera Project and the Actors' Shakespeare Project. The festival concludes April 17 with a musical tribute to Bernstein by the Brandeis-Wellesley Orchestra. Bernstein died in 1990. (AP)