Leon Botstein (born December 14,1946) is a Swiss-born American conductor,educator,historical musicologist,[1][2] and scholar serving as the President of Bard College since 1975.[3][4]
In 1963,at age 16,Botstein graduated from the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1967 with a bachelor's degree in history. While an undergraduate,he was concertmaster and assistant conductor of the university orchestra and founded its chamber orchestra.[7] His music teachers in college included composer Richard Wernick and the musicologists H. Colin Slim and Howard Mayer Brown. In 1967,after studying at Tanglewood,Botstein attended Harvard University,where he studied history under David Landes,writing on musical life of Vienna in the 19th and early 20th centuries,earning an MA in 1968. At Harvard,he was the assistant conductor of the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra and conductor of the Doctors' Orchestra of Boston.[8]
In 1969,while a graduate student,Botstein was awarded a Sloan Foundation Fellowship and began work for New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay’s administration as special assistant to the president of the Board of Education of the City of New York.[7][9] In 1970,at age 23,Botstein became the youngest college president in history after being appointed president of the now-defunct Franconia College in New Hampshire. He was offered the position after meeting his future father-in-law,Oliver Lundquist,who was on the board of trustees.[4]
In the wake of the death of his second child,an 8-year-old daughter,Botstein decided to return to the musical career he had begun at University of Chicago.[8] In 1985,he completed his Ph.D. in music history at Harvard[11] and began retraining as a conductor with Harold Farberman,eventually leading the Hudson Valley Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra.[8][4]
In 1990,Botstein established the Bard Music Festival,whose success led to the development of the critically acclaimed[12][13]Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts,a multi-functional facility designed by Frank Gehry on the Bard campus. In 1992,in addition to being named editor of The Musical Quarterly,he was appointed director of the American Symphony Orchestra,a position he still holds.[14] Under Botstein's directorship,the orchestra has developed a reputation for rescuing lesser-known works from obscurity.[15] In 1999,he helped establish Bard’s acclaimed Prison Initiative,which established college-in-prison programs across the country and is now active in nine states.[15]
Botstein also turned his attention to developing Bard's music program. In 2005,he oversaw the development of The Bard College Conservatory of Music and later became director of The Bard Conservatory Orchestra.[15] During this period,he also helped Bard acquire the Longy School of Music,and led The Bard Conservatory Orchestra on tours of China,Eastern Europe,and Cuba. In addition to conducting for the Youth Orchestra of Caracas in Venezuela and on tour in Japan,Botstein also helped develop Take a Stand,a national music program in the U.S. based on principles of El Sistema.[26][27] In 2015,he founded The Orchestra Now,[28] a pre-professional orchestra and master’s degree program at Bard College;in addition to performing multiple concerts each season at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center,The Orchestra Now performs a regular concert series at Bard's Fisher Center and takes part in Bard Music Festival concerts.[28]
In 2016,Botstein received $150,000 as a donation to Bard College from the foundation Gratitude America,which was founded by financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein,according to articles in The New York Times[29] and The Wall Street Journal. At the time,Botstein was on the charity's advisory board.[30][31] Botstein donated it all to Bard College as part of a $1 million gift he gave that year,with the rest of his donation coming from his personal savings and earnings.[32]
In 2019,Botstein appeared in the documentary College Behind Bars,a four-part television series about the Bard Prison Initiative,a degree program offered to inmates in New York prisons. The series was produced by his daughter,Sarah Botstein,who works for Ken Burns's documentary production company.[35]
Musicianship
Botstein is renowned[36][37][38] for reviving and promoting neglected repertoire and composers.[39][40][41] In addition,as director of the American Symphony Orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra,he emerged as a significant proponent of "thematic programming",which assembles concert programs around common themes grounded in literature,music history,or art.[42] He is also known for the series "Classics Declassified",in which he lectures,conducts,and takes questions from the audience.[43] Both the Bard Music Festival and Bard SummerScape continue his method of reviving neglected works and synthesizing performance and scholarship. The Wall Street Journal's Barrymore Laurence Scherer wrote,"the Bard Music Festival…no longer needs an introduction. Under the provocative guidance of the conductor-scholar Leon Botstein,it has long been one of the most intellectually stimulating of all American summer festivals and frequently is one of the most musically satisfying. Each year,through discussions by major scholars and illustrative concerts often programmed to overflowing,Bard audiences have investigated the oeuvre of a major composer in the context of the society,politics,literature,art and music of his times."[37]
Scholarship and writings
Botstein's scholarship focuses on the intersection of music,culture,and politics since the early 19th century.[8][7] He has written books including Judentum und Modernitaet and Von Beethoven zu Berg:Das Gedächtnis der Moderne (2013) and The History of Listening:How Music Creates Meaning (2000).
In addition,he is coeditor of Vienna:Jews and the City of Music,1870-1938, published in 2004,and editor of The Complete Brahms:A Guide to the Musical Works of Johannes (1999).
Botstein also writes frequently on primary and secondary education and universities:in addition to the book Jefferson's Children:Education and the Promise of American Culture (1997),he is the author of numerous articles on education in the United States.[46]
Personal life
Botstein is the brother of biologist David Botstein and pediatric cardiologist Eva Griepp. Both of his parents were physicians who,after emigrating to the U.S.,served on faculty of the Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
He is the husband of art historian Barbara Haskell. They have two children:Clara Haskell Botstein,director of legislation and governmental relations at the D.C. office of the deputy mayor for education,[47] and Max Botstein.[48][4]
Botstein and his first wife,Jill Lundquist,are the parents of Sarah Botstein,who produced the documentary College Behind Bars,and Abby Botstein (1973–1981).[4]
Carnegie Academic Leadership Award - The Carnegie Corporation,for outstanding leadership in curricular innovation,reform of K-12 education and promotion of strong links between their institution and their local community.
Harvard Centennial Medal by the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to recipients of graduate degrees from the School for their "contributions to society".
Botstein, Leon. The History of Listening: How Music Creates Meaning. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Botstein, Leon (2013). Von Beethoven zu Berg: Das Gedächtnis der Moderne. Zsolnay.
Botstein, Leon (2011). Freud und Wittgenstein Sprache und menschliche Natur. Vienna: Picus Verlag.
Botstein, Leon (2004). Vienna: Jews and the City of Music. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN978-1931493277.
Botstein, Leon (1999). The Complete Brahms: A Guide to the Musical Works of Johannes. New York, NY.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Botstein, Leon (1997). Jefferson's Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture. New York, NY: Doubleday. ISBN0-385-47555-1.
Botstein, Leon (1991). Judentum und Modernität: Essays zur Rolle der Juden in der deutschen und österreichischen Kultur, 1848 bis 1938. Vienna: Böhlau. ISBN3-205-05358-3.
(2024) "Intimate Beauty and Sublime Grandeur: Sound and Space in the Music of Berlioz", Berlioz and His World, edited by Francesca Brittan and Sarah Hibberd, University of Chicago Press.
(2022) "The Challenge and Legacy of Being a Jew from Hungary", in George Soros: A Life in Full, edited by Peter Osnos, Harvard Business Review Press
(2022) "Aesthetic Ambition and Popular Taste: The Divergent Paths of Paderewski, Busoni, and Rachmaninoff" in Rachmaninoff and His World, edited by Phillip Ross Bullock, University of Chicago Press.
(2020) Kristiansen, Morten (ed.). "Traditionalism". Strauss in Context. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN9781108379939.
(2020) Botstein, Leon (2020). "The Eroica in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries". In November, Nancy (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to the Eroica Symphony. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-1108422581.
(2020) Botstein, Leon (2020). "The Philosophical Composer: The Influence of Moses Mendelssohn and Friedrich Schleiermacher on Felix Mendelssohn". In Taylor, Benedict (ed.). Rethinking Mendelssohn. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN9780190611781.
(2017) "Hungary's xenophobic attack on Central European University is a threat to freedom everywhere". Washington Post. April 4, 2017.[56]
(2017) "American Universities Must Take a Stand". New York Times. February 8, 2017.[57]
(2016) "Bard president draws parallels between European anti-Semitism and American racism to explain Trump's win". Washington Post. December 16, 2016.[58]
(2016) "The Election Was About Racism Against Barack Obama". TIME. December 13, 2016.[59]
(2016) "Why the Next President Should Forgive All Student Loans". TIME. August 12, 2016.[60]
(2016) Botstein, Leon (August 9, 2016). "Walther Rathenau (1867-1922): Bildung, Prescription, Prophecy". In Picard, Jacques (ed.). Makers of Jewish Modernity: Thinkers, Artists, Leaders, and the World They Made. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN9780691164236.
(2015) "Can Music Speak Truth to Power?". Musical America. August 12, 2015.[61]
(2014) "The SAT is Part Hoax, Part Fraud". TIME. Vol.183, no.11. March 24, 2014. p.17.
(2014) "How an Anti-Semitic Composer Created 'Kol Nidre' and 'Moses'". The Jewish Daily Forward. March 24, 2014.[62]
(2014) "Book Review: 'Mad Music' by Stephen Budiansky & 'Charles Ives in the Mirror' by David C. Paul". The Wall Street Journal. August 1, 2014.[63]
(2013) "Resisting Complacency, Fear, and the Philistine: The University and its Challenges". The Hedgehog Review. June 1, 2013.[64]
(2011) Botstein, Leon (September 29, 2011). "The Eye of the Needle: Music as History after the Age of Recording". In Fulcher, Jane (ed.). The Oxford Handbook to the New Cultural History of Music. New York: Oxford University Press. pp.256–304. ISBN978-0-19-534186-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
(2008) "The Unsung Success of Live Classical Music". Wall Street Journal. October 3, 2008.
(2007) Botstein, Leon (March 24, 2007). "Freud and Wittgenstein: Language and human nature". Psychoanalytic Psychology. 24 (4): 603–622. doi:10.1037/0736-9735.24.4.603.
(2005) Botstein, Leon (2005). "Music, Femininity, and Jewish Identity: The Tradition and Legacy of the Salon". In Bilski, Emily (ed.). Jewish Women and Their Salons: The Power of Conversation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN9780300103854.
(2004) Botstein, Leon (2004). "Being Jewish". In Pearl, Judea and Ruth (ed.). I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing. ISBN9781580232593.
(2003) Botstein, Leon (2003). "The Future of Conducting". In Bowen, José (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Conducting. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0521527910.
(2003) "The Merit Myth". The New York Times. January 14, 2003.[65]
(2001) Botstein, Leon (2001). "Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Emancipation: The Origins of Felix Mendelssohn's Aesthetic Outlook". In Seaton, Douglas (ed.). The Mendelssohn Companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN978-0313284458.
(2001) "We Waste Our Children's Time". The New York Times. January 24, 2001.[66]
(2000) "What Local Control?". The New York Times. September 19, 2000.[67]
(2000) Botstein, Leon (2000). "Sound and Structure in Beethoven's Orchestral Music". In Glenn, Stanley (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Beethoven. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-1139002202.
↑Jackson, Jeffrey H.; Pelkey, Stanley C. (2005). "Introduction". Music and History: Bridging the Disciplines. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. p.xiii. ISBN978-1-57-806762-6.
↑Profile: Leon Botstein, Hadassah Magazine, "Botstein is a proud secular Jew not ambivalent or defensive about his identity. In I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl (Jewish Lights), he writes: "In Judaism, learning is prayer, for it celebrates the human capacity for language and thought." He waxes nostalgic for the days of "exceptional Jewry," arguing that "Jews have entered the indistinguishable middle class…. We are no longer the people of the book; we are a people of ordinary vulgarity. The real tragedy of American Jewry—and Israel—is that we've used privilege to become absolutely ordinary.""
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