Lenny in the common room at 2AM

Carnegie Hall's Leonard Bernstein festival is heading into its final weeks: On the Town has a short run at City Center starting on Wednesday night, and Alan Gilbert conducts the Juilliard Orchestra in the Kaddish Symphony on Nov. 24. American Scholar offers a nice bit of Bernsteiniana online: an account of a memorable appearance that Bernstein made at Harvard in 1986, with Gilbert as his student presenter. Two others who helped to organize Bernstein's late-night soliloquy at Adams House were James Ross, then a music tutor and now on the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Music; and Robert Kiely, beloved master of the house. Kiely recalls that Bernstein gave his speech while puffing on a cigarette and sipping Scotch from a dining-hall glass. His topic was terrorism.

Photo: Library of Congress