Benjamin Levy (musician)

Last updated
Benjamin Levy
Born1980 (age 4344)
Cooperstown, New York, U.S.
Genres Classical
Instruments Double bass

Benjamin Levy (born 1980) is an American classical musician who plays double bass.

Contents

Early life and education

Levy was born in Cooperstown, New York, in 1980 and grew up in Pennsylvania and Colorado. He attended Cherry Creek High School in Greenwood Village, Colorado, and spent two summers at the Aspen Music Festival. [1] He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in double bass performance from the New England Conservatory of Music in 2002. [2]

Career

Levy has appeared in performance with soprano Dawn Upshaw, the Borromeo String Quartet, and the Hawthorne String Quartet. In 2002, while a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, Mr. Levy was the recipient of the Maurice Schwartz Prize and was reviewed in The New York Times for his performance of Jacob Druckman's "Valentine" on solo double bass. A 2002 graduate of the New England Conservatory, Levy joined the bass section of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the start of the 2003 Tanglewood season. He is also the coordinator of the Double Bass Seminar at the Boston Conservatory. Levy's teachers have included David Potter, Todd Seeber, Timothy Pitts, Paul Ellison, and Stuart Sankey. [3]

Related Research Articles

John Harris Harbison is an American composer and academic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boston University Tanglewood Institute</span> School in Lenox, Massachusetts, US

The Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) is a summer music training program for students age 10 to 20 in Lenox, Massachusetts, under the auspices of the Boston University College of Fine Arts.

Douglas Yeo is an American bass trombonist who played in the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1985 to 2012, where he held the John Moors Cabot Bass Trombone Chair. He was also on the faculty of the New England Conservatory. In 2012 he retired from the BSO and accepted a position as professor of trombone at the Arizona State University School of Music, a position he held until 2016. From 2019 to 2023, he was trombone professor at Wheaton College (Illinois), and he was professor of trombone at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign from 2022-2024.

Bernard Rands is a British-American contemporary classical composer. He studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy. He held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Illinois, and the University of York before emigrating to the United States in 1975; he became a U.S. citizen in 1983. In 1984, Rands's Canti del Sole, premiered by Paul Sperry, Zubin Mehta, and the New York Philharmonic, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He has since taught at the University of California, San Diego, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Boston University. From 1988 to 2005 he taught at Harvard University, where he is Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music Emeritus.

Edwin Barker is an American double bass player who graduated from the New England Conservatory. He is Principal Double Bass with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Associate Professor of Music at Boston University College of Fine Arts.

John Sant’Ambrogio is an American cellist. He studied music at Lebanon Valley College and at Ohio University. He studied cello with Diran Alexanian, with Paul Olefsky, and with Leonard Rose.

Harold Wright was an American musician who was the principal clarinetist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1970 to 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jimmy López</span> Peruvian classical music composer

Jimmy López is a classical music composer from Lima, Peru. He has won several international awards and has been nominated to a Latin Grammy Awards. Pieces composed by him have been performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Peru, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. His works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Gewandhaus Leipzig, and during the 2010 Youth Olympic games in Singapore. His music has been featured in numerous festivals, including Tanglewood Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Grant Park Music Festival, Darmstadt International Course for New Music, and Donaueschingen Music Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Xavier Rodriguez</span> American classical composer (born 1946)

Robert Xavier Rodríguez is an American classical composer, best known for his eight operas and his works for children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynn Chang</span> Chinese American violinist

Lynn Chang, born 1953, is a Chinese-American violinist known for his work as both a soloist and a chamber musician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Schwendinger</span> Mexican composer

Laura Elise Schwendinger was the first composer to win the American Academy in Berlin's Berlin Prize.

Stefan Jackiw is an American classical violinist.

Marti Epstein is an American composer. She is Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music and the Boston Conservatory at Berklee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kati Agócs</span> Canadian-American composer (born 1975)

Kati Ilona Agócs is a Canadian-American composer and a member of the composition faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

Quartet San Francisco is a non-traditional and eclectic string quartet led by violinist Jeremy Cohen. The group played their first concert in 2001 and has recorded five albums. Playing a wide range of music genres including jazz, blues, tango, swing, funk, and pop, the group challenges the traditional classical music foundation of the string quartet.

The Missouri Chamber Music Festival and Adult Chamber Music Intensive (ACMI) was founded in 2010. The goal of the MOCM Festival concerts is to present the fine art of small ensemble music to a wide audience through an accessible, community-based festival. The ACMI workshop is the educational portion of the festival, placing adult instrumentalists in chamber ensembles with Festival artists for coaching and performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David T. Little</span> American composer and drummer (born 1978)

David T. Little is a Grammy-nominated American composer, record producer, and drummer known for his operatic, orchestral, and chamber works, most notably his operas JFK,Soldier Songs, and Dog Days which was named a standout opera of recent decades by The New York Times. He is the artistic director of Newspeak, an eight-piece amplified ensemble that explores the boundaries between rock and classical music, and is the Chair of the composition faculty at Mannes School of Music.

Donald Harris was an American composer who taught music at Ohio State University for 22 years. He was Dean of the College of the Arts from 1988 to 1997.

Kenji Bunch is an American composer and violist. Bunch currently serves as the artistic director of Fear No Music and teaches at Portland State University, Reed College, and for the Portland Youth Philharmonic. He is also the director of MYSfits, the most advanced string ensemble of the Metropolitan Youth Symphony.

Robert Sirota is an American classical music composer based in New York City and Searsmont, Maine. Sirota has written solo instrumental, vocal, chamber, orchestral, operatic, and liturgical works. He is the father of American violists Nadia Sirota and Jonah Sirota, and husband to organist and Episcopal priest Victoria Sirota. Dating back to 1994, Robert Sirota's work can be found on nine studio albums recorded by an assortment of musicians including: Dinosaur Annex Ensemble, the Chiara String Quartet, and the American String Quartet. Most recently, Sirota's 2020 work for cello and piano, Family Portraits, was recorded by the Fischer Duo for their album 2020 Visions, released on Navona Records on August 26, 2022.

References

  1. "Music for Autism | » Benjamin Levy" . Retrieved 2022-07-03.
  2. "Alumni Profile: Benjamin Levy '02". 2006-09-01. Archived from the original on 2006-09-01. Retrieved 2022-07-03.
  3. "BSO Bassist to Discuss Becoming a Professional Musician at Falmouth Forum". 2006-09-09. Archived from the original on 2006-09-09. Retrieved 2022-07-03.