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Jonathan Sternberg (b New York, 27 July 1919). American conductor. After studying the violin as a child at the Institute of Musical Art (now the Juilliard School) in New York, Sternberg took an academic degree at New York University (1939), followed by studies in musicology at NYU Graduate School and Harvard. During his undergraduate years, he was active as a New York critic for the Musical Leader of Chicago; he also attended rehearsals of the National Orchestral Association conducted by Leon Barzin, from whom he acquired his conducting technique. Apart from two later private sessions with Barzin (1946) and two summers with Pierre Monteux (1946 1947), he was self taught.
Sternberg began his professional career on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941, conducting the National Youth Administration Orchestra of New York in Copland's An Outdoor Overture, before entering military service. At the end of the war he found himself in Shanghai where he took over the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra for a season. After returning briefly to the USA, Sternberg moved to Vienna, making his debut with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra In 1947. He worked closely with the Haydn scholar H.C. Robbins Landon, scouring the libraries, monasteries and churches of Austria for lost manuscripts, until Robbins Landon set up the Haydn Society, for which Sternberg made a series of pioneering recordings, initially of Haydn and Mozart, not least the 'Nelson Mass', 'Posthorn' Serenade and some dozen Haydn symphonies. Other recording premieres under Sternberg included Schubert's Second Symphony, Rossini's Stabat mater, Prokofiev's Fifth Piano Concerto, Milhaud's Fantaisie Pastorale and Charles Ives's Set of Pieces.
He also began to present modem American music to European audiences that had heard little of such repertory. With the RIAS orchestra in Berlin he conducted the first European performances of a large number of American scores, including Bernstein's Serenade, Menotti's Violin Concerto and the Second Symphony of Charles Ives. With other orchestras, Sternberg conducted the first European performances of works by Barber, Copland, Diamond and Benjamin Lees. He was also responsible for a number of world premieres, including Rorem's First Symphony (1951) and Laszlo Lajtha's Sixth (1961).
After a year at the helm of the Halifax Symphony Orchestra (1957 1958) and five as music director of the Royal Flemish Opera in Belgium (1961 1966), he returned to the USA to take the position of music director and conductor of the Harkness Ballet of New York (1966 1968). Sternberg was then appointed musical director of the Atlanta Opera and Ballet, opening the new Atlanta Memorial Arts Center with the American stage premiere of Purcell's King Arthur. After Atlanta he took up a visiting professorship of conducting at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. On leaving he took up a similar position at Temple University, Philadelphia, where he taught and conducted for 20 years. Here, too, he conducted a number of world premieres, including Music for Chamber Orchestra by David Diamond (1976), A Lincoln Address and Night Dances by Vincent Persichetti (1977) and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski's Ricercari notturni for three saxophones and orchestra (1978). In his 80s, Sternberg is still active on the podium and as a lecturer.
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