WESTPORT–Lucy Antek Johnson grew up in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, separated by only two degrees from the maestro Arturo Toscanini.

The degree of separation between Lucy and Toscanini was her father. 

Samuel Antek was first violinist for the NBC Orchestra. His memoir on working with Toscanini—“This Was Toscanini“—was a sensation when it was published in 1963, five years after Samuel’s death at 49.

Lucy Antek was 12 years old when her father died. Her book, published in August by Brown Books Publishing Group, is entitled “This Was Toscanini, The Maestro, My Father, and Me.”

Johnson will talk about her book with Mary Lou Weisman, Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Westport Library.

Johnson recalls in her book that Toscanini’s name was always spoken with “great reverence” at home. Her dad would return from grueling rehearsal sessions, “either extolling the maestro’s greatness or complaining about his irascibility. Toscanini’s presence was everywhere.”

“Toscanini was an artistic genius,” Johnson says. And her father’s work had a bit of genius in it as well. Samuel Antek wrote with reverence and a little bit of awe about the demanding and passionate maestro and how he was able to extract greatness from his orchestra. Samuel’s book is the only behind the scenes view of what it was like to work under Toscanini.

As a child, Johnson’s parents rented houses on Compo Beach. She recalls “lots of New York City friends would come up and visit during the summer.” She moved 15 years ago from Los Angeles to Westport, after a career in television production. She got involved in the Westport Library and with “Friends of Westport Library.”

Why write this memoir now? Johnson says, “2017 marked the 150th anniversary of Toscanini’s birth.” References to Toscanini were in newspapers and magazines and many of the references were direct quotations from Samuel’s book.

Johnson sat down and read it for the first time in 30 years and realized that it was a great memoir and that the art of Toscanini is still relevant in the 21st Century. She also realized what a great writer her father was and that “my father’s words were still relevant in the 21st Century.” 

My work is “a memoir wrapped in a memoir.” she says. By introducing each chapter, Johnson “is trying to share with the reader what it felt like to grow up in a musical family.”

Mary-Lou Weisman is an accomplished journalist, a writing teacher and a best-selling author.

To register for the program, click here. For more information, click here or call the library at 203-291-4800.