Beth Levin, Piano

Beth Levin (bethlevin2), Piano

Biography

Beth Levin is an acclaimed recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician and recording artist. “A pianist of rare qualities and the highest professional caliber,” states pianist Paul Badura-Skoda of Beth, and throughout her celebrated career she has approached both the Romantic repertoire and contemporary composers with equal facility and grace.

At age 12, Beth made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and soon after was selected to study with Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute of Music. “Mr. Serkin was an inspiration the moment he walked into a room,” she recalls, “a single word evoking the eloquence of a poem.”

Beth made her New York solo recital debut in 1982 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2007, she performed Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations at Steinway Hall in New York City, a return for her to a composer in “the first repertoire I had studied as a child.”

As a concerto soloist, Beth has appeared with The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Boston Civic Symphony, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and numerous other symphony orchestras throughout the Americas, working with noted conductors such as William Smith, Arthur Fiedler, Benjamin Zander, Tonu Kalam, Sidney Rothstein, Milton Katims, Silas Huff and Joseph Silverstein.

Chamber music festival collaborations brought her to the Marlboro Festival, Casals Festival, Harvard, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Ankara Music Festival and the Blue Hill Festival. As a “Music From Marlboro” artist, she toured the United States and Canada.

A founding member of the Gramercy Trio, the American Arts Trio and Vista Lirica, Beth has also collaborated with the Audubon Quartet, the Vermeer Quartet, The Reykjavik Woodwind Quintet, the Daniel Quartet, the Boston Artists Ensemble and the Saratoga Chamber Players, as well as touring Europe extensively with Trio Borealis.

In 2004, Beth traveled with Poetica Musica under the auspices of the U.S. State Department, performing and giving master classes in Croatia, Serbia and Turkey.

Her recordings include Bach’s Goldberg Variations, released on Centaur Records in 2008, as well as Schubert's “Wanderer Fantasy” and Scott Wheeler's “Artist Proofs,” both of which were released for the Taubman Institute Recordings. For Columbia Masterworks, she recorded the Hummel “Septet in D Minor.” Her performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio, WGBH (Boston), WFMT (Chicago) and WNYC, WNYE and WQXR (New York).

As a soloist, chamber musician and interpreter of contemporary music, Beth performed and recorded works by Alan Campbell, Marc Eychenne, Brian Fennelly, Steven R. Gerber, Henryk Górecki, Louis Karchin, Michael Rose, Allen Shearer, Scott Wheeler and David Del Tredici. Beth Levin’s musical education began with Maryan Filar at the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia, and in addition to Rudolf Serkin, her teachers included Leonard Shure at Boston University and Dorothy Taubman in New York City.

Praise for Beth Levin:

“Ms. Levin kept the ear engaged with boldly inflected readings and an impressive ability to convey emotion without exhibition. Her technique was solid, and better still, her organic approach made it feel like an afterthought.” 
Jeremy Eichler, The New York Times

“Over the years, Levin has transformed herself. The flame within still burns with undimmed intensity, but now there is warmth as well as blinding light.”
Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe

"A pianist with a bold interpretive personality and a powerful technique. She brought fire and originality to her program."
Allan Kozinn, The New York Times

"Her playing of Schumann's Carnival was at times dazzling in its virtuosity, at other times warmly moving in its sensitivity. Her performance was thoroughly persuasive."
Allen B. Skei, The Fresno Bee

"A pianist of rare qualities and the highest professional caliber. I was deeply impressed and moved by her performance at the last Marlboro Festival."
Paul Badura-Skoda

"Beth Levin was the highlight- and a bright light she was- of the opening concert of a new Portland series Sunday afternoon in Portland Art Museum."
Oregon Journal

"Miss Levin, who has well-drilled fingers and temperament to spare, romped through the nonstop virtuoso writing. But it was not all her show, and she subdued herself to let the other instruments have their say when the score indicated which, in all truth, is not too often. It was a bracing performance."
Harold C. Schonberg, The New York Times

"Her performance of the Hummel Septet with a touring ensemble for Marlboro lingers in the memory as one of the supreme examples of pianistic energy and equilibrium in this reviewer's experience."
Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe

"These were performances Rudolf Serkin would have relished for their density and solidity of musical substance, and envied for their purely pianistic panache."
Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe

"Beth Levin’s performance is very much in the “I’ll play it my way” mode, but without a speck of disrespect to the composer. Quite the opposite; she plays as if in love with the notes. Tempos are deliberate, sometimes to the extreme. Repeats are taken at will. Voicing is unexpected. And yet there is always the sense that she is exploring Bach’s genius, as opposed to fashioning a vehicle for her own personality."
Peter Burwasser
Fanfare Magazine: Bach Goldberg Variations, Beth Levin, piano