Gilbert Levine

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Sir Gilbert Levine
Sir Gilbert Levine Conducting the Dresden Staatskapelle in 2002
Background information
Birth name	Gilbert Levine
Born	January 22, 1948
Origin	Brooklyn, New York
Occupation(s)	Conductor
Years active	1987-present

Sir Gilbert Levine KCSG (b. January 22, 1948 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American conductor.

Levine has conducted numerous orchestras in the United States and abroad, including the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, the Bayerischer Staatsorchester, the Dresden Staatskapelle, and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted numerous televised concerts on PBS and the European Broadcasting Union and has performed for Pope John Paul II on several occasions.

1 Early career
2 Relationship with Pope John Paul II
3 Recent years
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Early career

Levine attended the Juilliard School of Music, and holds degrees from both Princeton University and Yale University. He studied bassoon with Stephen Maxym and Sherman Walt, piano with Gilbert Kalish, Music History with Lewis Lockwood and Arthur Mendel, Music Theory with Nadia Boulanger, Peter Westergaard, and Milton Babbitt, and conducting with Dennis Russell Davies Jacques-Louis Monod and Franco Ferrara. He was assistant to Sir Georg Solti in London and Paris and was a protege of the German conductor Klaus Tennstedt.

Early in his career, Levine conducted orchestras both in Europe and the United States, such as the San Francisco Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, Toronto Symphony and the NDR Sinfonie-Orchester Hamburg and the Radio-Sinfonie Orchester-Berlin, in a performance of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition which was recorded for release on CD.

He first gained international notice when he became conductor and artistic director of the Kraków Philharmonic in 1987. He was the first American to take charge of an Eastern European orchestra. Under his direction, the Krakow Philharmonic's reputation increased greatly. The orchestra toured extensively in Europe, Asia, and North America.

[edit] Relationship with Pope John Paul II

In 1988, while working in Kraków, Levine met Pope John Paul II. At that time, the Polish government only allowed the circulation of Newsweek to roughly 200 Polish citizens, one of whom was the Archbishop of Kraków. The archbishop read a Newsweek article about Levine and sent it to the pope (a native of Kraków), who arranged for a meeting in his private library. ^[1]

John Paul II was very impressed with Levine, and asked him to conduct a concert commemorating the 10th anniversary of his papacy. In 1992, Levine (whose mother-in-law is an Auschwitz survivor) conducted the "Papal Concert to Commemorate the Holocaust". ^[1] He went on to conduct several more concerts for the pope, including a celebration of the new millennium and a World Youth Day concert. He became known as "the Pope's Maestro" and was invested as a Knight Commander of St. Gregory, one of only four Jews to receive that honor. ^[2] ^[3]

Upon John Paul II's death, Levine called him a friend and "an incredible sustenance for me." ^[1] Levine later conducted a memorial concert for the pontiff.

[edit] Recent years

Beginning in 1997, Levine has toured with three eminent London orchestras: the Royal Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, and the Philharmonia Orchestra. He and the Royal Philharmonic received critical praise for their recording of Tchaikovsky Third Symphony. Levine and the Philharmonia Orchestra toured America and Europe performing Haydn's The Creation.