55 Facts About James Levine

James Lawrence Levine was an American conductor and pianist.

James Levine was music director of the Metropolitan Opera from 1976 to 2016.

James Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a musical Jewish family.

James Levine's maternal grandfather was a composer and a cantor in a synagogue; his father, Lawrence, was a violinist who led dance bands under the name "Larry Lee" before entering his father's clothing business; and his mother, Helen Goldstein, was briefly an actress on Broadway, performing as "Helen Golden".

James Levine had a brother, Tom, who was two years younger, who followed him to New York City from Cincinnati in 1974, and with whom he was very close.

James Levine employed Tom as his business assistant, looking after his affairs, arranging his rehearsal schedules, fielding queries, scouting out places to live, meeting with accountants, and accompanying Levine on trips to Europe.

James Levine subsequently studied music with Walter Levin, first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet.

James Levine graduated from Walnut Hills High School, a magnet school in Cincinnati.

James Levine entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with Jean Morel.

James Levine graduated from Juilliard in 1964, and joined the American Conductors project connected with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

James Levine lived in The San Remo on Central Park West in New York City.

From 1964 to 1965, James Levine served as an apprentice to George Szell with the Cleveland Orchestra.

James Levine then served as the Orchestra's assistant conductor until 1970.

In June 1971, James Levine was called in at the last moment to substitute for Istvan Kertesz, to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Mahler's Second Symphony for the Ravinia Festival's opening concert of their 36th season.

James Levine made numerous recordings with the orchestra, including the symphonies and German Requiem of Johannes Brahms, and major works of Gershwin, Holst, Berg, Beethoven, Mozart, and others.

From 1974 to 1978, James Levine served as music director of the Cincinnati May Festival.

James Levine made his Metropolitan Opera debut a few weeks before he turned 28, on June 5,1971, leading a June Festival performance of Puccini's Tosca.

James Levine became the company's first artistic director in 1986, and relinquished the title in 2004.

In 2005, James Levine's combined salary from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Met made him the highest-paid conductor in the country, at $3.5 million.

James Levine led the Metropolitan Opera on many domestic and international tours.

On his appointment as general manager of the Met, Peter Gelb emphasized that James Levine was welcome to remain as long as he wanted to direct music there.

On September 25,2013, James Levine conducted his first Met performance since May 2011, in a revival production of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte.

James Levine first conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in April 1972.

One unique condition that James Levine negotiated was increased flexibility of the time allotted for rehearsal, allowing the orchestra additional time to prepare more challenging works.

James Levine received general critical praise for revitalizing the orchestra's quality and repertoire since the beginning of his tenure.

James Levine experienced ongoing health problems, starting with an onstage fall in 2006 that resulted in a torn rotator cuff and started discussion of how long James Levine's tenure with the BSO would last.

James Levine was a regular guest with the Philharmonia of London and the Staatskapelle Dresden.

James Levine initiated the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera in 1980, a professional training program for graduated singers with, today, many famous alumni.

James Levine was conductor of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, the student resident orchestra at the annual summer music festival in Verbier, Switzerland, from 1999 through 2006.

James Levine continued to work with young students even when his health issues kept him from conducting.

James Levine was awarded the Lotus Award from Young Concert Artists.

James Levine experienced recurrent health issues beginning in 2006, including sciatica and what he called "intermittent tremors".

Later that month, James Levine underwent surgery to repair the injury.

James Levine returned to the podium on July 7,2006.

James Levine withdrew from the majority of the Tanglewood 2008 summer season because of surgery required to remove a kidney with a malignant cyst.

James Levine returned to the podium in Boston on September 24,2008, at Symphony Hall.

On September 29,2009, it was announced that James Levine would undergo emergency back surgery for a herniated disk.

James Levine conducted from a motorized wheelchair, with a special platform designed to accommodate it, which could rise and descend like an elevator.

James Levine returned to the Met on September 24,2013.

James Levine died in his Palm Springs home on March 9,2021.

James Levine had previously detailed his accusation in 2016 in a report to the Lake Forest Police Department in Illinois.

On December 4, a fourth man, who later had a long career as a violinist in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, said he had been abused by James Levine beginning in 1968, when he was 20 years old and attending the Meadow Brook School of Music.

On December 4,2017 the Ravinia Festival severed all ties with James Levine, and terminated his five-year contract to lead the Chicago Symphony there.

The Juilliard School, where James Levine had studied, replaced him in a February 2018 performance where he was scheduled to lead the Juilliard Orchestra and singers from the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra applauded the courage of the four men who came forward with accusations that James Levine had abused them.

Five days after news of the accusations by the four men broke, James Levine spoke about them for the first time, and called them "unfounded".

On March 12,2018, the Metropolitan Opera announced that James Levine had been fired.

James Levine sued the Metropolitan Opera in New York State Supreme Court for breach of contract and defamation on March 15,2018, three days after the company fired him, seeking more than $5.8 million in damages.

The Metropolitan Opera and James Levine announced a settlement on undisclosed terms in August 2019.

In September 2020, the size of the payout was indirectly exposed by annual disclosure statements required for nonprofits; James Levine had received $3.5 million in the settlement.

James Levine recorded extensively with many orchestras, and especially often with the Metropolitan Opera.

James Levine appears on several dozen albums as a pianist, collaborating with such singers as Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, Christa Ludwig, and Dawn Upshaw, as well as performing the chamber music of Franz Schubert and Francis Poulenc, among others.

James Levine was featured in the animated Disney film Fantasia 2000.

James Levine conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the soundtrack recording of all the music in the film.

James Levine is seen in the film talking briefly with Mickey Mouse, just as his predecessor Leopold Stokowski did in the original film.