Robert Levin, artistic director and piano

Robert Levin discusses the Festival past and present in this informative Podcast
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After more than a quarter century as an artist faculty member at the Sarasota Music Festival Levin was named the Festival's associate artistic director in 2004 and, succeeded Paul Wolfe, as he became the event's artistic director in 2007. 

As a accomplished period pianist, Levin's solo engagements include the orchestras of Atlanta, Berlin, Birmingham, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Montreal, Utah and Vienna with such conductors as James Conlon, Bernard Haitink, Sir Neville Marriner, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle and Joseph Silverstein. Levin also is renowned for his improvised embellishments and cadenzas in classical period repertoire. He has made recordings for DG Archiv, CRI, Decca/London, Deutsche Grammophon Yellow Label, ECM, New York Philomusica, Nonesuch, Philips and SONY Classical. These include a Mozart concerto cycle for Decca/London with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music; a Beethoven concerto cycle for DG Archiv with John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (including the world-premiere recording of Beethoven's arrangement of the Fourth Concerto for piano and string quintet together with his arrangement of the Second Symphony for piano trio); and the complete Bach harpsichord concertos with Helmuth Rilling; as well as the six English Suites (on piano) and both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier (on five keyboard instruments) as part of Hänssler's 172-CD Edition Bachakademie. The first recording of a Mozart piano sonata cycle was released by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi last year.  

Levin's active career as a chamber musician includes long associations with the violist Kim Kashkashian and the New York Philomusica. His recordings include the complete Bach harpsichord concerti, the complete Beethoven piano concerti and the Mozart piano concerti.  

In addition to his performing activities, Levin is a noted theorist and Mozart scholar and is the author of a number of articles and essays on Mozart. A member of the Akademie für Mozartforschung, his completions of Mozart fragments are published by Bärenreiter, Breitkopf & Härtel, Carus and Peters, are recorded and performed throughout the world. His completion of the Mozart C-minor mass, commissioned by Carnegie Hall, premiered in January 2005 and has since been recorded and widely performed.  

Levin is president of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition (Leipzig, Germany), a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He has served on the faculties of the Curtis Institute, SUNY Purchase; Conservatoire Américain (Fountainebleu, France); and the Staatliche Hoschschule für Musik (Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany).