James Levine
James Levine
James Lawrence Levineis an American conductor and pianist. He is primarily known for his tenure as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, a position he held for 40 years. He has made numerous recordings, as well as television and radio broadcasts, with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Levine has also held leadership positions with the Ravinia Festival, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1980, he started the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program and often works to train promising...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth23 June 1943
CityCincinnati, OH
CountryUnited States of America
I really recommend the following. Before you're going to hear a piece, any piece, for the first time, don't do anything. Just go an hour early and read the program notes. Then you have some idea about how long it is, the instrumentation, what the idea of it is, the pure general shell. Then, when the piece is played, don't fight with it. Listen to it. And if you find anything that fascinates you, then here's the important thing: Go hear it again, soon.
They've really got to recognize that all of us bring some of our family issues to work and our work home.
If you factor in not just who's doing what at home, but how much more time working fathers are spending on work outside the home, on average they spend two hours more per day outside the home.
I'd rather they come an hour before and read the program notes, so that they have some slight introduction to what they're going to hear. Then I recommend the most important thing of all. Listen, don't fight.
All you have to do is ask any child, frankly. You don't have to ask a child development researcher if fathers make a difference. All kids will tell you that the presence of a father makes a big difference.
And so, little by little, I gradually divested myself of pretty nearly all of the guest conducting I used to do, because I was at the same time working in the places like the Met, where I could work in this sort of depth.
Employee fathers need to step up to the plate and put their family needs on the table.
At my age, you are naturally inclined towards teaching.
As major orchestras around the world are gripped in various kinds of crises and upheaval, we need to be sure that we are bringing up this new generation.
Art has never been a popularity contest.
I thought I'd write one book and the world would change overnight
My hunch is that probably men are doing more both outside the home and inside the home
It wasn't that I ever knew I'd be at the Met for 20 years, or 30 years, or 40 years, or anything like that
I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment