In early 2021, Mark Horowitz ’71 received a call from the props master for a Leonard Bernstein biopic called Maestro. “He wanted to know if I could make a few batons for Bradley Cooper, the star and director,” says Horowitz, a retired software developer and actuary who moonlights as a crafter of conductor’s batons.
Horowitz was not entirely surprised. His father, Dick Horowitz, a Juilliard-trained percussionist, had made several batons for Bernstein—and other famous classical and operatic conductors. It is even rumored that Bernstein was buried with one of the elder Horowitz’s batons. The props master “probably expected me to fall off my chair,” says Horowitz, who learned to fashion batons working alongside his father in their home workshop in the 1960s. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d never heard of Bradley Cooper.”
Born to New York City musicians, Horowitz and his brother, Robert ’73, grew up immersed in music and museums. Their mother, Bernice, was a harpist who played in the pit at musicals including A Chorus Line. Their father played in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for 66 years—including decades as principal timpanist. Called “a Stradivari of Sticks” by the New York Times for his baton-making prowess, Dick Horowitz was also the resident orchestra handyman. He made his first baton for Bernstein, who’d broken his while rehearsing Candide. “My father looked at life as an opportunity to solve problems,” Horowitz says.
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