Max Levinson
Piano

American pianist Max Levinson is known as an intelligent and sensitive artist with a fearless technique. Levinson's career was launched when he won First Prize at the 1997 Guardian Dublin International Piano Competition, the first American to achieve this distinction. He received overwhelming critical acclaim for his two solo recordings on N2K Encoded Music, and was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in March 1999. Max Levinson has been hailed by critics for musical maturity beyond his years: "The questioning, conviction, and feeling in his playing invariably reminds us of the deep reasons why music is important to us, why we listen to it, why we care so much about it" (The Boston Globe). 

Max Levinson has performed as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Boston Pops, San Antonio Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra and American Youth Symphony. He has worked with such conductors as Robert Spano, Neeve 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." 

Max Levinson’s 2002-2003 season highlights include performances with the Colorado Symphony conducted by Pinchas Zukerman, Oregon Symphony, Richardson Symphony, and appearances with the Tokyo String Quartet in New York, Boston, Berkeley, Atlanta, Orange County, CA, Urbana-Champaign, IL, Saratoga, CA and Sun City, AZ. In addition, Mr. Levinson will make recital appearances in Seattle and Dayton, OH and will tour with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival in the spring. 

Last season, Mr. Levinson performed with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, Florida Philharmonic, Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, and Florida West Coast Symphony. He collaborated with the world-renowned Tokyo String Quartet at the Tisch Center for the Arts at New York’s 92nd Street Y. As an active chamber musician, Mr. Levinson has also collaborated with such renowned artists as Benita Valente, Richard Stoltzman, Young Uck Kim, Arnold Steinhardt, David Finckel, Daniel Phillips, Cynthia Phelps, Nathaniel Rosen, Carter Brey, Heiichiro Ohyama, Tokyo String Quartet and Marc Neikrug. Major music festival appearances include Mostly Mozart, Santa Fe, Marlboro, Tanglewood, La Jolla, The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's Summer Music Festival, Vancouver and Switzerland’s Davos Festival. 

Max Levinson's debut recitals in 1998 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 solo recordings on N2K Encoded Music. 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. 

Strongly committed to nurturing young audiences, Max Levinson is an active participant in the Grammy-in-the-Schools program throughout the United States and in 2001 he joined the faculty of the Boston Conservatory. 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 Millenium 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, 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. Mr. Levinson is also co-artistic director of the Janus 21 concert series in Boston. 

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.