Program notes
The Omnibus returns! medici.tv brings the hit 1950s TV show back to your screens. In this episode, Leonard Bernstein makes his Omnibus debut. Between 1954 and 1958, he hosted six more episodes on other music-related topics.
Launched by the Ford Foundation in the 1950s as a way of improving Americans' cultural knowledge, the hit television series quickly drew a cult following, winning multiple awards, including no less than eight Emmys. It was broadcast first by ABC, then CBS, and finally NBC. medici.tv offers here the seven episodes curated and hosted by Leonard Bernstein, episodes in which he made his TV debut as a music educator. To say that these appearances proved incredibly successful is an understatement: on November 29, 1954—just 15 days after the critically-acclaimed first episode on Beethoven's Fifth Symphony—he was on the cover of Life magazine!