The New York Philharmonic already had a tradition of presenting concerts for young people when between 1958 and 1972 Leonard Bernstein took advantage of the medium of television to introduce music to children and instruct them in how to become informed, discerning listeners. The Young People's Concerts reveal Bernstein's mastery of both music education and the medium of television. Combination lecture-concerts were recorded before a concert-hall audience, primarily of children, and broadcast in the United States and Canada. Over the course of the broadcasts, Bernstein discussed a wide array of subjects relating to music history and theory, forms, genres, featured composers and compositions. As part of this series, there were also annual concerts featuring young performers. The impact of these broadcasts is incalculable, but judging by the letters and fan mail found elsewhere in the Bernstein Collection, generations of both musicians and audience members were formed in large part by their early exposure to these programs.
There are a number of drafts for each program script. The online collection includes each handwritten "first" or preliminary draft and what appears to be closest to the final typescript version. The typescript drafts often include handwritten annotations that appear in many cases to have been added by one of Bernstein's assistants to reflect more accurately what had been said during the concerts. Where they exist, additional materials such as preliminary notes, musical samples, musical cues and/or filming schedules have been included for most of the broadcasts.