In 1959, composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) visited the Soviet Union with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on a tour sponsored by the President’s Special International Program for Cultural Presentations. In a television documentary about the trip, Bernstein told Russian musicians, “Your music and ours are the artistic products of two very similar people who are natural friends, who belong together and who must not let suspicions and fears and prejudices keep them apart.”