Festival Leadership
Robert Levin, Artistic Director
After more than a quarter century as an artist faculty member at the Sarasota Music Festival Levin was named the Festival's associate artistic director in 2004 and, succeeded Paul Wolfe, as he became the event's artistic director in 2007.
As a accomplished period pianist, Levin's solo engagements include the orchestras of Atlanta, Berlin, Birmingham, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Montreal, Utah and Vienna with such conductors as James Conlon, Bernard Haitink, Sir Neville Marriner, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle and Joseph Silverstein. Levin also is renowned for his improvised embellishments and cadenzas in classical period repertoire. He has made recordings for DG Archiv, CRI, Decca/London, Deutsche Grammophon Yellow Label, ECM, New York Philomusica, Nonesuch, Philips and SONY Classical. These include a Mozart concerto cycle for Decca/London with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music; a Beethoven concerto cycle for DG Archiv with John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (including the world-premiere recording of Beethoven's arrangement of the Fourth Concerto for piano and string quintet together with his arrangement of the Second Symphony for piano trio); and the complete Bach harpsichord concertos with Helmuth Rilling; as well as the six English Suites (on piano) and both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier (on five keyboard instruments) as part of Hänssler's 172-CD Edition Bachakademie. The first recording of a Mozart piano sonata cycle was released by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi last year.
Levin's active career as a chamber musician includes long associations with the violist Kim Kashkashian and the New York Philomusica. His recordings include the complete Bach harpsichord concerti, the complete Beethoven piano concerti and the Mozart piano concerti.
In addition to his performing activities, Levin is a noted theorist and Mozart scholar and is the author of a number of articles and essays on Mozart. A member of the Akademie für Mozartforschung, his completions of Mozart fragments are published by Bärenreiter, Breitkopf & Härtel, Carus and Peters, are recorded and performed throughout the world. His completion of the Mozart C-minor mass, commissioned by Carnegie Hall, premiered in January 2005 and has since been recorded and widely performed.
Levin is president of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition (Leipzig, Germany), a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He has served on the faculties of the Curtis Institute, SUNY Purchase; Conservatoire Américain (Fountainebleu, France); and the Staatliche Hoschschule für Musik (Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany).
Paul Wolfe, Artistic Director Laureate
In 1965, Wolfe co-founded the Sarasota Music Festival and served as its artistic director until 2006. He was the Sarasota Music Festival's artistic director and conductor for 35 years and was named conductor laureate at the conclusion of the 1995-96 season. In 2002, Wolfe retired after 35 years as violinist with the Florida String Quartet, one of four chamber ensembles he had established and nurtured during his tenure as artistic director of the Orchestra.
Wolfe is a former board member and chairman of the Education Committee of Chamber Music America and received Chamber Music America's 1995 "Citation for Excellence" in recognition of his exceptional contributions. He is the former director and a current faculty member of the Bennington Chamber Music Conference and, since 1974, been a resident artist of the Sebago Long Festival in Maine. Wolfe continues to perform and coach at summer music festivals in Maine and Vermont.
With early musical aspirations, Wolfe began to play both the piano and the violin in his youth. His New York debut recital, at age 12, featured the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. At 15, he began his conducting career with the WNYC Radio Orchestra. While at Queens College studying mathematics and economics, he played in the first violin section of the New York Symphony under Leopold Stokowski. This was followed by performances with Frank Sinatra at CBS, weeks with Mark Warnow and Paul Whiteman at the Capitol Theater and other diverse musical engagements
While in the armed forces, he was assigned to the Air Force Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., where he served as concertmaster and assistant conductor. Wolfe later played in the orchestra for South Pacific, while continuing his education in a business administration program at Columbia University, where he also earned a his master's degree in music.
Wolfe devoted much of his time in New York to making symphonic recordings for Columbia Records, RCA and other companies, working with artists such as Bruno Walter, Leonard Bernstein, Alexander Schneider, Rudolf Serkin, Alfred Wallenstein, Arthur Rubenstein, Leopold Stokowski and Igor Stravinsky. In 1957, he took part in the first Casals Festival in Puerto Rico as a violinist and keyboard artist, and continued to participate until 1966.
RoseAnne McCabe, Administrative Director
McCabe has been a member of the Sarasota Orchestra staff, serving as the Festival's administrative director since 2000. In the fall of 2003 she took on additional responsibility as education programs director, overseeing all the Orchestra's educational and community outreach initiatives.
Prior to joining the Orchestra, she served as director of admissions for the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, N.C. McCabe holds both bachelor's and master's degrees in music from Indiana University in double bass performance and has had an extensive career as an orchestral performer. She continues to perform today as a member of the Sarasota Orchestra bass section.
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