Everything about James Levine totally explained
James Lawrence Levine (b.
23 June 1943) is an
American orchestral
conductor and
pianist. He is best known as the music director of the
Metropolitan Opera in
New York. He is also the current music director of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Biography
Early years
Levine was born in
Cincinnati, Ohio to a musical family: his maternal grandfather was a
cantor in a
synagogue, his father was a
violinist, who led a dance band, and his mother was an actress. He began to play the piano as a small child. At the age of 10, he made his concert debut as soloist in
Felix Mendelssohn's
Piano Concerto No. 2 at a youth concert of the
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Levine subsequently studied music with
Walter Levin, first violinist in the
La Salle Quartet. In 1956 he took piano lessons with
Rudolf Serkin at the
Marlboro Music School,
Vermont. In the following year he began studies with
Rosina Lhévinne at the
Aspen Music School. After graduating from
Walnut Hills High School, the acclaimed magnet school in Cincinnati, he entered the
Juilliard School of Music in
New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with
Jean Morel. He graduated from the Juilliard School in 1964 and joined the American Conductors project connected with the
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
From 1964 to 1965, Levine served as an apprentice to
George Szell with the
Cleveland Orchestra and then served as assistant conductor until 1970. That year, he also made his debut appearance as guest conductor with The
Philadelphia Orchestra at its summer home at Robin Hood Dell. He made his debut in that same year with the
Welsh National Opera and the
San Francisco Opera. Levine had a long association with the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra and served from 1973 to 1993 as
music director of the Ravinia Festival. In 1990, at the request of
Roy E. Disney, he arranged the music and conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the soundtrack of
Fantasia 2000 released by
Walt Disney Pictures. He also
served as music director with the
Cincinnati May Festival (1974-1978).
Metropolitan Opera career
Levine made his
Metropolitan Opera debut in June 1971 in a festival performance of
Tosca. His success led to further appearances and to his appointment as its principal conductor in 1973. He then became music director in 1976. In 1983, he served as conductor and musical director for the
Franco Zeffirelli screen adaptation of
La Traviata, which featured the Met orchestra and chorus members. He became the company's first artistic director in 1986, and relinquished the title in 2004.
Under his leadership, the
Metropolitan Opera orchestra and chorus has become one of the finest operatic ensembles in the world, punctuated by the regular concert series for the orchestra and chamber ensembles he began at
Carnegie Hall. On his recent appointment as General Manager of the Met,
Peter Gelb emphasised that, even after 35 years as music director, something exceptional in the major opera houses of the world, James Levine would be welcome to remain as long as he wanted to direct music there. His present contract runs through the 2010/2011 season.
At the Met, Levine has led numerous new productions of works of
Mozart,
Verdi,
Richard Wagner,
Richard Strauss,
Gioacchino Rossini,
Arnold Schoenberg,
Igor Stravinsky,
Kurt Weill,
Claude Debussy,
Alban Berg, and
George Gershwin. For the 25th anniversary of his Met debut, Levine conducted the world premiere of
John Harbison's
The Great Gatsby, commissioned especially to mark the occasion.
Levine has led the
Metropolitan Opera on many domestic and international tours. The company telecasts several productions around the world each season and makes radio broadcasts on Saturday afternoons from December to April across North America.
Boston Symphony Orchestra
In October 2004, Levine became music director of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), succeeding
Seiji Ozawa, and becoming the first American-born conductor to head the BSO. He now divides his time between
New York and
Boston. Thus, for the first time in living memory, the same conductor was in charge of the country's leading opera house and a major orchestra. In Europe,
Herbert von Karajan performed a similar feat in the 1950s as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and director of the Vienna Staatsoper.
One unique condition that Levine negotiated was increased flexibility of rehearsal time with the orchestra, to allow for more rehearsal time for more challenging works. Since the start of his tenure, the orchestra has also established an "Artistic Initiative Fund" of about US$40 million to fund the more expensive of Levine's projects.
One criticism of Levine during his tenure in Boston is that he hasn't attended many orchestra auditions. A 2005 article reported that Levine had attended 2 out of 16 auditions during his tenure up to that time. Levine himself has responded that he's the ability to provide input on musician tenure decisions after the initial probationary period, and that it's difficult to know how well a given player will fit the given position until that person has had a chance to work with the orchestra: "My message is the audition isn't everything."
Another 2005 report stated that during Levine's first season as music director, the greater workload from the demands of playing more unfamiliar and contemporary music has increased physical stress with some of the BSO musicians. Levine and the players met to discuss this, and he agreed to program changes to lessen these demands. Levine has received general critical praise for revitalising the quality and repertoire since the beginning of his tenure.
Levine has had to deal with health issues in recent years, including
sciatica and what he's called "intermittent tremors". On
1 March 2006, Levine fell onstage during a standing ovation after a performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and tore the rotator cuff in his right shoulder. Later that month, he underwent surgery to repair the injury. He returned to the podium on
7 July 2006, leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood.
Conducting in Europe
Levine's
Boston Symphony contract limits his guest appearances with American orchestras. However, Levine has conducted regularly in Europe, with the
Vienna Philharmonic,
Berlin Philharmonic, and at the
Bayreuth Festival. Levine has also been a regular guest with the
Philharmonia of London and the
Dresden Staatskapelle. Since 1975, he's also conducted regularly at the
Salzburg Festival and the annual July
Verbier Festival. From 1999 to 2004, Levine was chief conductor of the
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, and was credited with improving the quality of instrumental ensemble during his tenure.
Levine also performs regularly in
chamber music ensembles and as an accompanist in
Lieder recitals.
Levine is Conductor Laureate of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, the resident orchestra of the annual music festival based in Verbier, Switzerland, and has led that orchestra since it was organized in 2000. The Festival website describes Levine as “not only an esteemed conductor and an inexhaustible source of inspiration to the orchestra, but also a passionate teacher.” Levine himself has said in a 2004 interview:
"At my age, you're naturally inclined towards teaching. You want to teach what you've learned to the next generation so that they don't have to spend time reinventing the wheel. I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment."
Since 2005 Levine serves also as Music Director of the Tanglewood Music Center, a summer academy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Conductors he's helped and influenced through his musical mentorship include Marco Armiliato,
James Conlon, John Keenan and, most currently, Jens Georg Bachmann.
Further Information
Get more info on 'James Levine'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://james_levine.totallyexplained.com">James Levine Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
