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Young Israeli Conductor Substitutes for Leonard Bernstein at Concert

October 4, 1960
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Elyakim Shapira, a 34-year-old Israeli conductor, took over the podium of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra along with two other young assistants at Carnegie Hall yesterday when Leonard Bernstein suddenly became ill and could not go on.

The audience, attending the Philharmonic’s first concert of the season, cheered the performances of Mr. Shapira and the other two assistant conductors–Gregory Millar of Canada and Russell Stanger of New York. It was just such an incident–when Bruno Walter became ill before a concert in 1943–that Leonard Bernstein took over the baton of the Philharmonic to start his rapid rise to fame.

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