Leon Botstein (born December 14,1946) is a Swiss-born American conductor,educator,historical musicologist,[1][2] and scholar who has been the President of Bard College since 1975.[3][4]
In 2026,the United States Department of Justice released emails confirming Botstein took a trip in 2012 to the island of child sex offenderJeffrey Epstein. Afterwards,Bard College hired WilmerHale to undertake an independent review of the complete extent of these communications,financial contributions associated with Epstein,and any related issues.[5]
Biography
Botstein was born in Zürich,Switzerland,in 1946.[6] The son of Charles and Anne,Polish-Jewish physicians who escaped Nazi persecution,Botstein moved to New York City at the age of two.[7][8] He studied violin with Roman Totenberg and,during the summers,studied with faculty from the National Conservatory in Mexico City.[6]
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.[9] 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.[10]
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.[9][11] In 1970,at age 23,Botstein became one of the youngest college presidents 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]
President of Bard College
In 1975,Botstein left Franconia to become the president of Bard College,a position he still holds.[10] He oversaw significant curricular changes,[12][4] and,under his leadership,Bard saw record gains in enrollment,campus growth,endowment,institutional reach,and high-profile faculty.[4][12][9] Botstein directed the launch of the Levy Economics Institute,a public-policy research center,as well as graduate programs in the fine arts,decorative arts,environmental policy,and curatorial studies;soon thereafter,he helped acquire Bard College at Simon's Rock and later founded Bard High School Early College,which operates in seven cities:Newark,New York City,Cleveland,Washington D.C.,Baltimore,New Orleans,and Hudson.[9][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.[10] In 1985,he completed his Ph.D. in music history at Harvard[13] and began retraining as a conductor with Harold Farberman,eventually leading the Hudson Valley Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra.[10][4]
Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts
In 1990,Botstein established the Bard Music Festival,whose success led to the development of the critically acclaimed[14][15]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.[16] Under Botstein's directorship,the orchestra has developed a reputation for rescuing lesser-known works from obscurity.[17] In 1999,Botstein helped establish the Bard Prison Initiative,which established college-in-prison programs across the country and is now active in nine states.[17]
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.[17] 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.[28][29] In 2015,he founded The Orchestra Now,[30] 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.[30]
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.[33]
The relationship with Epstein began in 2011,years after Epstein was publicly known to be a sex offender,following an unsolicited $75,000 donation to Bard High School Early College. Botstein stated that he engaged with Epstein in his capacity as the institution's chief fundraiser.[36]
In a 2013 email,Epstein told his assistant to have a woman be "appropriately dressed for Bottstein [sic]".[35] That same year,Botstein also offered to meet Epstein at Bard High School,which is affiliated with Bard College.[37] In several emails to Epstein,Botstein mentioned Vladimir Nabokov,the author of Lolita.[37]
In 2016,Botstein received $150,000 as a donation to Bard College from the foundation Gratitude America,which Epstein founded. At the time,Botstein was on the charity's advisory board.[38][39] Botstein donated the money 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.[40] Epstein also put Botstein in contact with a daughter of Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn so that she could attend Bard College.[41] In early 2017,according to The New York Times,Botstein and Epstein worked together to buy a $50,000 wristwatch.[42] Botstein continued to correspond with Epstein until December 2018,less than a year before Epstein's death.[35] Botstein has said he did not benefit personally from the relationship and that any money that exchanged hands was for Bard.[43]
On February 19,2026,the Board of Trustees of Bard College hired law firm WilmerHale to conduct an independent review of Botstein's connections to Epstein.[44] A week later,Bard indefinitely postponed a planned March 2026 gala at Cipriani in Manhattan meant to celebrate Botstein's 50 years as president of Bard College.[45]
Musicianship
Botstein in 2025
Botstein is renowned[46][47][48] for reviving and promoting neglected repertoire and composers.[49][50][51] 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.[52] He is also known for the series "Classics Declassified",in which he lectures,conducts,and takes questions from the audience.[53] 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."[47]
Scholarship and writings
Botstein's scholarship focuses on the intersection of music,culture,and politics since the early 19th century.[10][9] 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.[56]
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.
Botstein and his first wife,Jill Lundquist,are the parents of two children.[4] Their second child,Abigail Lundquist Botstein,was fatally hit by a car in October 1981,shortly before her eighth birthday.[59] She is buried in the Bard Cemetery.[60]
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, ed. (1999). The Compleat Brahms: A Guide to the Musical Works of Johannes Brahms. 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.
↑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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