New Production

Leon Botstein

Music Director and Principal Conductor

Leon Botstein is music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra in New York and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the radio orchestra of Israel. He is also the founder and coartistic director of the Bard Music Festival. Highlights of the past season included guest engagements with NDR Hamburg and the BBC Symphony, as well as recordings of Bruno Walter's Symphony No. 1 and Paul Dukas's opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue, which Botstein conducted at New York City Opera. Last season Botstein also conducted Die ägyptische Helena, with Deborah Voigt, in Madrid; made appearances with the Düsseldorf Symphony; and led a monthlong North American tour of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. His recording with the London Symphony Orchestra of Gavriil Popov's epic Symphony No. 1 and Shostakovich's Theme and Variations, Op. 3, received a Grammy nomination. His extensive discography includes recordings of Chausson's opera Le roi Arthus (Telarc); music by Copland, Sessions, Perle, Rands (New World Records), and Dohnányi (Bridge Records); Liszt's Dante Symphony and Tasso; works by Glière, Reger, Bartók, Szymanowski, Hartmann, and Bruckner; and two operas by Richard Strauss: Die ägyptische Helena with Deborah Voigt and Die Liebe der Danae with Lauren Flanigan (all on Telarc). He is editor of The Musical Quarterly and author of numerous articles and books. For his contributions to music, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts. Since 1975 he has been president of Bard College.