Max Levinson Bio

Max Levinson has performed as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis
Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, New
World Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Oregon Symphony, St.
Paul Chamber Orchestra, Utah Symphony, Boston Pops, Los Angeles Chamber
Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland amongst others. He has
worked with such conductors as Robert Spano, Neemi Järvi, Uriel Segal, Joseph
Swensen, Jeffrey Kahane and Alasdair Neale. Recent recital appearances include
Washington Performing Arts Society's "Kreeger String & Hayes Piano Series" at the
Kennedy Center, Tonhalle Orchester Zurich's "Competition Winner Series," Ravinia's
"Rising Stars," Lincoln Center's "What Makes it Great" and the FleetBank Boston
"Emerging Artists Series."

Artistic Director of the San Juan Chamber Music Festival (in Ouray, Colorado) and
former Co-Artistic Director of the Janus 21 Concert Series in Cambridge,
Massachussetts, Max Levinson is an active chamber musician. He has collaborated
with such renowned artists as the Tokyo Quartet, Vermeer Quartet, Borromeo
Quartet, Mendelssohn Quartet, the Jacques Thibaud String Trio, Benita Valente,
Richard Stoltzman, Pinchas Zukerman, Joseph Silerstein, Stefan Jackiw, Young Uck
Kim, Arnold Steinhardt, David Finckel, Daniel Phillips, Cynthia Phelps, Nathaniel
Rosen, Carter Brey, Allison Eldredge, Christopheren Nomura, Heiichiro Ohyama, and
Marc Neikrug. He has appeared at major music festivals including Mostly Mozart,
Santa Fe, Marlboro, Tanglewood, La Jolla, Seattle, Killington, Vancouver and
Switzerland's Davos Festival.

Max Levinson's debut recitals at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall and London's
Wigmore Hall as the Guardian Competition winner were critical successes and
received standing ovations. He performed ambitious programs, which included works
by Bartók, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Schönberg, Schubert and Kirchner. Of the New
York debut performance, The New York Times wrote that Levinson's "quietly
eloquent conceptions, formidable technique and lovely touch left little else to be
desired."

Max Levinson garnered international accolades for his two recordings. Max Levinson,
his debut recording released immediately following his triumph in Dublin, is an
extraordinarily thoughtful program that traces the musical lineage between Brahms,
Schumann, Schönberg and Kirchner. The Los Angeles Times deemed Mr. Levinson "a
brilliant American pianist, musically mature and fully formed technically. More
important, he uses his wide spectrum of pianistic mechanics for altogether poetic ends,
touching the listener deeply and often." American Record Guide declared Levinson's
second disc, Out of Doors: Piano Music of Béla Bartók "an important recording and a
great one. The disc blew me out of my chair, and it has taken me a long time to get
back up. Hearing performances as riveting as these produces a rare frisson; indeed,
this is the most brilliant and exciting Bartók piano disc I have heard. On the basis of
only two recordings, Mr. Levinson has created the myth of a pianist with everything."
He has also recorded the Brahms Horn Trio with the Santa Fe Chamber Music
Festival for the Stereophile label, and the violin sonatas of Debussy, Janácek, and
Prokofiev with violinist Andrew Kohji Taylor for Warner Classics. Upcoming recording
projects include the complete piano music of Leon Kircher, where Levinson's recording
will be featured alongside Leon Fleisher, Peter Serkin, and others, and the complete
piano music of Bruce Sutherland.

Strongly committed to nurturing young audiences, Max Levinson has been an active
participant in the Grammy-in-the-Schools program throughout the United States and is
on the faculty of the Boston Conservatory and Brown University. He has experimented
with Internet broadcast, served as Artist-in-Residence at Harvard University's Lowell
House for four years, and has been featured on National Public Radio's "Performance
Today" and "A Note to You." Mr. Levinson serves on the boards of the Aube Tzerko
Piano Institute and AMRON (Artists Musicians Recital Opportunity Network). In
2000, he was asked by the Millennium Committee of Ireland to design a National
Education Initiative, and gave a televised masterclass as part of the project. He has
also taught masterclasses at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Harvard, MIT,
Brigham Young University, Rutgers, the University of Washington, Boston University,
the Music Teacher's Association of California annual convention and in various cities
throughout the U.S. In 1997, he was named "Best Debut Artist" by The Boston Globe
and was added to Steinway's distinguished roster of artists.

Born in the Netherlands and raised in Los Angeles, Max Levinson began studying
piano at age five. His first teachers were Bruce Sutherland and Aube Tzerko, and as a
child he also studied cello, composition and conducting. He attended Harvard
University, graduating cum laude with a degree in English Literature, and later
completed his graduate studies with Patricia Zander at the New England Conservatory
of Music, receiving an Artist Diploma and the Gunther Schuller Medal, an award given
to the school's top graduate student. Max Levinson currently lives in the Boston area
with his wife, cellist Allison Eldredge and their two daughters, Natalie and Jessica.