Leon Botstein has been music director of the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) since 1992; in 2003 he was appointed music director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra of the Israel Broadcast Authority. He is also co-artistic director of the Bard Music Festival and music director of the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra. He conducts the ASO’s subscription series at Avery Fisher Hall, as part of Lincoln Center Presents Great Performers, as well as the orchestra’s educational concert series for adult listeners, Classics Declassified, at Miller Theatre, Columbia University. He also has an active international career, making frequent guest appearances with major orchestras around the world.
His most recent recording is Popov’s Symphony No. 1 and Shostakovich’s Theme and Variations, Op. 3, with the London Symphony Orchestra, on Telarc. Liszt’s Eine Symphonie zu Dantes Divina commedia (“Dante Symphony”) and Tasso, also with the London Symphony Orchestra, was released by Telarc early in 2004. His recent recording with the American Symphony Orchestra, a live performance of Strauss’s opera Die ägyptische Helena, with Deborah Voigt, has received critical acclaim, as has his recording of Gliere’s Symphony No. 3, “Il’ya Muromets” with the London Symphony. Other recordings for Telarc include Max Reger’s Böcklin Tone Poems and Romantic Suite, Richard Strauss’s opera Die Liebe der Danae; Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra; music of Karol Szymanowski; symphonies of Karl Amadeus Hartmann; Dohnányi’s D Minor Symphony, and Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony (Schalk edition). He also recently recorded music of Ernst Toch with NDR—Hamburg for New World Records, and, with the American Symphony, will soon record a tribute album of works commissioned by the legendary Francis Goelet, also for New World Records. In 2004 he led the BBC Symphony in a broadcast and recording of Chausson’s opera King Arthur (Telarc). His extensive discography also includes works by Brahms, Schubert, Bruch, and Mendelssohn and a series on CRI featuring works by Richard Wilson, Robert Starer, Richard Wernick, and Meyer Kupferman.
Leon Botstein is also a prominent scholar of music history, the editor of The Musical Quarterly, and the author of numerous articles and books on such diverse topics as music, education, history, and culture. He is the recipient of the National Arts Club Gold Medal, the Austrian Cross of Honor from the Austrian Cultural Forum, the Centennial Medal of the Harvard Graduate School of the Arts and Science, and the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Since 1975 he has been president of Bard College, where he is also the Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities.
