conductor

Hugh Wolff conductor

Conductor Hugh Wolff set out to study to become a scientist but music caught him at the age of 10 and he never looked back.

Hugh Wolff is among the leading conductors of his generation. He has appeared with major American orchestras including Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Cleveland. Much in demand in Europe, where he has conducted the London Symphony and the Philharmonia, among many others, Wolff is a regular guest conductor with orchestras and summer music festivals globally as well. Wolff has been appointed the next Music Director of the Orchestre National de Belgique and will take up his position in September 2017. Between 1997-2006 he was principal conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra. He was principal conductor and then music director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (1988-2000), with whom he recorded 20 discs. Of this partnership, the New York Times wrote: “the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Hugh Wolff, has developed an effortlessly polished sound ... Wolff shapes his interpretations with impeccable taste.” A conductor whose interests span from baroque performance practice to the championing of new works, Wolff was music director of the New Jersey Symphony (1986-1993) and Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival (1994-1997). He began his professional career in 1979 as associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra under . Wolff has an extensive discography and has collaborated with Msitislav Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma, , , and Edgar Meyer, among others. Three times nominated for a Grammy Award, Wolff won the 2001 Cannes Classical Award. Born in Paris to American parents, Wolff spent his early years in London and Washington, DC, studying piano with and composition with George Crumb. After graduating from Harvard College in 1975, Wolff won a fellowship to study conducting with Charles Bruck and composition with in Paris. He returned to the US to continue studies with Fleisher at the . In addition to his performing career, Wolff holds the Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood Director of Orchestras chair at New England Conservatory where he is in charge of four orchestras and teaches graduate students in orchestral conducting.

13C guest soloist

Robert Levin piano

Pianist Robert Levin is known for restoring the Classical period practice of improvised embellishments and cadenzas and has been hailed for his mastery of that era’s musical language.

The modern-day Mozart, Robert Levin has made recordings for DG Archiv, CRI, Decca/Oiseau-Lyre, Deutsche Grammophon, ECM, Klavierfestival Ruhr, New York Philomusica, Nonesuch, Philips, and SONY Classical. Among these are the complete Bach concertos with Helmuth Rilling as well as the English Suites and the Well-Tempered Clavier (on five-keyboard instruments) for Hänssler’s 172-CD Edition Bachakademie. Mr. Levin studied piano with Louis Martin and composition with Stefan Wolpe in New York. He worked with Nadia Boulanger in Fontainebleau and Paris while still in high school, afterwards attending . Upon graduation he was invited by Rudolf Serkin to head the theory department of the Curtis Institute of Music, a post he left after five years to take up a professorship at the School of the Arts, SUNY Purchase, outside of New York City. In 1979 Mr. Levin was Resident Director of the Conservatoire Américain in Fontainebleau, France, at the request of Nadia Boulanger, and taught there from 1979 to 1983. From 1986 to 1993 he was professor of piano at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. President of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Mr. Levin was Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University until his retirement.

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