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Q&A: Conductor Sir Gilbert Levine '71

Sir Gilbert Levine ’71 is an American conductor whose work has been featured on stages around the world and on television in various PBS concert specials. He has garnered the nickname “the Pope’s Maestro” for his enduring friendship with Pope John Paul II. In addition to his musical recordings, several profiles on his life have been broadcast internationally, including a recent feature on "60 Minutes." A film screening of Levine’s travels and performances, followed by a Q&A, will take place in McCormick 101 on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.

The Daily Princetonian: How did you first become interested in music? At what point in your life did you realize you wanted to be a conductor?

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Sir Gilbert Levine: Well, those are two different questions. I became interested in music, or I should say music captured me, when I was maybe three years old. There was a spinet piano in my house and I heard my mother playing folk songs on the piano. And then when she was gone I simply stood on tippy-toes and reached up and began banging out notes that only I thought were beautiful and played and played and played. And then eventually, a couple of years later, my parents finally gave in and got me lessons. But it was love at first hearing really. And I come from a home that was not very classically musically oriented at all — we had literally three recordings of classical music in my house. But it was just something that came to me. And when I was pretty young, maybe nine or ten, I saw Leonard Bernstein conducting his “Young Persons Concerts” on the television and was just absolutely captivated. And from then on I had in the back of my mind that this was something I might someday conceive of doing, but I was extremely interested in just getting as good as I could get at on the instruments I was studying. At the age of 12, I began studying the bassoon really seriously, first with the principal bassoon of the New York Philharmonic and then with the principal bassoon of the Metropolitan Opera. And in fact, to close the Bernstein loop a bit, my mother was completely befuddled by the fact that I was so taken with music, she didn’t think this was something that was a profession for a serious person. And she wrote a letter to Leonard Bernstein … because he was the most famous classical musician in the United States, maybe one of the most famous in the world at the time, and probably never expected to get an answer. But she got an answer. The question was, ‘What do I do with this kid? How do I find out if he’s got what it takes to really make it as a professional musician?’ And Bernstein wrote back to her, astoundingly, and said, ‘Take him to someone of impeccable credentials and have him audition and [don’t] take no for an answer.’ So he was thinking this was a stage mother, and that she would be looking to push me into music, and in fact the opposite was true. So she was the one who made the outreach to the principal bassoon of the Metropolitan Opera and said, ‘I want your honest answer.’ And she didn’t tell me, and I went off and auditioned for this guy, just tumbled off and played for him and he didn’t say a word. Then when I left his studio, he called her up and said that ‘It’s okay, it’s safe.’ And she wrote back to Bernstein with great thanks for his advice. And from I guess the age of 13 or 14 on, I absolutely wanted to become a conductor and conducted my first concert I guess when I was probably 18 or 19, really.

DP: You write about your friendship with Pope John Paul II in “The Pope’s Maestro.” What role did music play in this relationship? What has this friendship meant to you and your career over the years?

GL: As a Jewish kid being brought up in Brooklyn, believe me, the last thing I imagined was that I would meet the Pope. I met the Pope … two months after I arrived in Krakow, completely out of the blue. The Cardinal Archbishop there made arrangements for me to meet the Pope, and it turned out the Pope wanted to meet me because he couldn’t believe that somebody would be so crazy as to go into the Communist world from the West. And he wanted to find out, I think, what crazy person this was. But the Pope was, of course, one of the great spiritual leaders of our time, maybe one of the great Popes of history, but he was also an artist. He had been an actor, he had written poetry, he was a person with an artistic soul. And I think he saw in my going to Krakow a possible bridge of all kinds, I think. But using the art, my art, maybe, I think he had the notion that maybe music could be a bridge for him, a bond. So I came as a professional musician and one who had gone to his home country, and I think he came as one of the great spiritual leaders, but also somebody with an artistic soul. I think he put two and two together certainly long, long before I did about how that could come together, about how that might serve his larger purpose of bringing the world together in peace. Over the course of the years that I knew him, that effort, that search for peace on his part, which was literally ceaseless, became intertwined with my musical life in a way that I could not have imagined, my art serving this incredible overarching need on the part of the Pope for peace among peoples of all the world. It was truly a partnership — I still to this day can’t understand, because some of the most audacious concerts that we did, the Papal Concert to Commemorate the Shoah, the Papal Concert of Reconciliation, were my idea . . .

DP: You have been known to honor those who have had profound impacts on your life, such as in the instance of you honoring Edward T. Cone ’39, who served as one of your many instructors. With this in mind, who or what inspires your work?

GL: I feel that I’ve been unbelievably lucky to have encountered great mentors at almost each of the stages where I needed them, they came forward. So that bassoonist from the Metropolitan Opera was the first really great teacher I had — Stephen Maxym was his name. He brought to me a sense of what the wonder could be, because he wasn’t just a great bassoonist, he was a remarkable bassoonist, but he loved life and he loved music and for all the right reasons. And he was in his own way, as the bassoonist in the Metropolitan Opera, a humanist. I needed to see that connection, and he brought that to bear. I then had this crazy thing happen where I went down to take a job for the summer at Princeton to input computer cards … I did punch cards for a computer project that was being done by Kenneth Levy [GS ’55], a member of the faculty. And all I did was punch. I took notes and I made them into computer cards and I filed them away. Into my life at that time came a professor named Lewis Lockwood [GS ’60], who was one of the great Beethoven scholars in the world. He said, ‘What are you doing up at Juilliard?’ I said, ‘Well it’s maybe the best conservatory in the country, and I feel privileged to —’ ‘Nah. You’re not feeding your brain, you’re not feeding your mind. You have a mind. Why not come down here and we’ll feed your mind, we’ll get those brain cells going?’ I don’t know why he took it on himself to do this. And I did what, as you know, almost nobody does, and I transferred from Juilliard to Princeton. Nobody does that, and certainly at Juilliard they didn’t understand what I was doing that for. I came down and Lewis showed me around the department, and showed me the wonders of the Music Department at the time. You could study twelve-tone with Milton Babbitt [GS ’92]. You could study Bach with Arthur Mendel. You could study medieval music with Ken Levy. And you could study analysis and form with Edward T. Cone. As well, of course, as studying Beethoven and Mozart with Lewis Lockwood. And Lewis became a mentor and Ed Cone became a mentor. He wasn’t teaching very much in the department anymore, he was sort of a homebody and a loner and a little bit of a crusty guy. And he also somehow decided that he wanted to take me under his wing and invited me to his home, which was a very, very private place, and gave me the most incredible insights into that nexus between the natural musicianship which he saw in me and this deep analytical mind that he brought to bear . . .

DP: Since graduating from Princeton in 1971, you have been an active alumnus, particularly within the Music Department. Why is it important to you to maintain a relationship with the University?

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GL: I want to give back. It’s given me so much, it gave me so much, it’s continuing to give me so much, and I want to give back. I want to be able to touch the lives of students. To talk about Edward T. Cone, I am so delighted to have been able to honor him by conducting the [Psalm 91] on PBS. It may be the first time a Princeton composer has been on PBS, it doesn’t matter to me that it was the first time. It was the first time that Edward T. Cone’s work had been on PBS, and millions of people came to know that man’s work. That’s part of my debt to Princeton … and my debt to Ed Cone, of course. But I feel it very, very strongly. I think it’s simply a great university, and it’s gone through so many changes since I was there.

DP: A slew of your performances as well as pieces focused on your life have been showcased on television. How has film served as a factor in your career? How do you view the ability to broadcast music around the world?

GL: First of all, it started with Bernstein. Because if, as I mentioned, I saw a conductor on the television for the first time, and it was Leonard Bernstein at a Young Persons Concert. So I kind of got the idea that if I was sitting in my home and watching this, that you could communicate that way. I think the other aspect is you reach so many people with your art. It is such an incredible medium to be able to conduct a concert in Germany … and have it seen literally all over the world. I did the concert with the Staatskapelle Dresden, one of the great orchestras of the world, in Krakow. We did Brahms’ “Requiem” to commemorate the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and that concert was seen all over the world. It was just an amazing experience to conduct Brahms, and at that concert we also did … Gorecki … with Gorecki himself in the audience, and you can see him on television — they somehow found a camera angle that was looking through my conducting to the swaying visage of Gorecki going back and forth, listening to his own music. That’s priceless. There’s also an aspect to television which gives the viewer and the listener, if it’s done well, an experience of the music that they cannot get in a live auditorium . . .

DP: Would you speak about the film that you will be screening on May 2?

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GL: Well what I want to do is — I thought that the way the screening was framed, sort of following the travels is important. What I’m going try and do is do excerpts of … relatively brief excerpts of some of the concerts I’ve done with some of the great orchestras around the world to give an idea of what it means to conduct different orchestras, orchestras from great traditions, some in works they’ve done hundreds of times and some brand new works. And we’ll do a part of … concerts I’ve done in Krakow and in Rome and in Washington and in various places, and give a sense I think as a peripatetic conductor, as someone who has traveled the world conducting wonderful ensembles, what those ensembles are like to conduct and talk about the experiences I’ve had with them. And then I’m really very, very much looking forward to the fact that Wendy Heller, Chair of the Music Department, is going to do a Q&A with me and talk to me.