Leon Botstein

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Leon Botstein

Leon Botstein (born December 14, 1946 in Zurich ) is an American conductor and musicologist .

Life

Botstein's parents are from Poland. Before the Second World War, they went to Switzerland to study medicine because of the racist numerus clausus in Poland, and members of their families were victims of the Holocaust. The geneticist David Botstein is a brother. Because of the limited job opportunities for foreigners in Switzerland, they moved to the USA after World War II, where Botstein attended the New York High School of Music and Art until 1962. He then studied at the University of Chicago and Harvard University and became President of Franconia College in 1970.

Since 1975 he has been president of Bard College , where he founded the Bard Music Festival in 1990 . Since 1993 he has been the musical director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra . From 2003 to 2011 he was also musical director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra . As a guest conductor, he has worked with the BBC Symphony Orchestra , the London Symphony Orchestra , the London Philharmonic Orchestra , the NDR Symphony Orchestra , the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic .

Botstein made recordings of works by Ernest Chausson , Aaron Copland , Roger Sessions , George Perles , Ernst von Dohnányis , Franz Liszt , Anton Bruckner , Béla Bartóks , Karl Amadeus Hartmann , Max Reger and Reinhold Gliers . He recorded a live performance of Richard Strauss ' operas Die ägyptische Helena (with Deborah Voigt ) and Die Liebe der Danae (with Lauren Flanigan ) with the American Symphony Orchestra . His album with Gawriil Popov's First Symphony and Dmitri Shostakovich's Theme and Variations was nominated for a Grammy for best orchestral recording in 2004.

Botstein is also editor of The Musical Quarterly and has published articles and books on music and Judaism (including Freud and Wittgenstein - language and human nature ). He was awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters Prize , the Centennial Award from Harvard University and the Austrian Cross of Honor, 1st Class . In 2009 he received the Carnegie Foundation's Academic Leadership Award and in 2011 the Leonard Bernstein Award for the Elevation of Music in Society . He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1993 and of the American Philosophical Society since 2011 . He is also a non-resident Permanent Fellow at the Vienna Institute for Human Sciences .

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personal data
SURNAME Botstein, Leon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American conductor and musicologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich