James Levine
James Lawrence Levine [ lɛ'vaɪn ] ( born June 23, 1943 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American conductor and pianist.
Artistic development
He grew up in a musical family. His father served as a dance band violinist and one of his grandfathers was a cantor in a synagogue. With ten years of his first performance as a pianist in conjunction with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He studied music theory with Walter Levin, first violinist of the LaSalle String Quartets, and piano with Rudolf Serkin at the Cincinnati College - Conservatory of Music. In 1961 he completed training as a conductor at The Juilliard School in New York and also a study of song interpretations.
In 1964, James Levine youngest assistant conductor of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra under George Szell. In 1971 he joined the Metropolitan Opera in New York and made his conducting debut with a production of Puccini 's opera Tosca.
His career at the Metropolitan Opera ranging from chief conductor (1973) and musical director (1976 ) to the artistic director (1986). He has conducted in the decades of his artistic career at the Metropolitan Opera about 2,000 performances of 75 operas, including many first performances of the orchestra.
James Levine undertook not only with the Metropolitan Orchestra has toured all over the world, but also ensured that the opera productions were broadcast on television. For his expressive interpretations of Wagner, he received the " Anton Seidl Award" ( Anton Seidl Award ) of the " Wagner Society of New York."
Artistic meaning
His artistic work was limited James Levine not only on the management of the Metropolitan Orchestra, but he brought as a pianist and accompanist for four decades, a variety of music to be heard and accompanied at the piano among other Luciano Pavarotti, Cecilia Bartoli, Christa Ludwig, Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman. In the concert hall James Levine has conducted all the major orchestras of the world, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, to name just a small selection. Regular guest appearances at the Salzburg Festival (1975-1993) and the Bayreuth Festival (1982-1998) belonged to James Levine's life as an artist, as to accompany "Three Tenors", José Carreras, Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti on their world tour, or the baton to the soundtrack of Disney's animated film Fantasia 2000. Since 1972, he has produced more than 200 sound recordings.
Levine's artistic primacy is the coming of the human voice, vocal sound he repeatedly emphasizes in his rehearsals.
At the beginning of the concert season 1999/2000, James Levine was appointed in addition to his job at the New York "Met" chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic. In summer 2004, he became music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which he left at the end of the season 2010/11.
James Levine has devoted recently also increasingly coming musicians. He founded the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the "Met", which encourages young singers; further through his involvement as music director, now Conductor Laureate of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra in the Swiss Verbier Festival and the Tanglewood Music Center, the summer academy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Among the conductors he has helped through his musical mentoring include, among other things, Marco Armiliato, James Conlon, John Keenan and recently the German conductor Jens Georg Bachmann.
Awards
- Cultural Award of New York City ( 1980)
- Grammy Awards ( mult. )
- Smetana Medal ( 1987)
- Gold Medal of the Nationa Institute of Social Sciences ( 1996)
- National Medal of Arts ( 1997)
- Anton Seidl Award ( 1997)
- Lotus Award (1997)
- Gold Decoration for Services to the City of Vienna (2002)
- American Classical Music Hall of Fame (2003)
- Ditson Conductor's Award ( 2009)