Max Levinson

My teaching goal is to help each individual student become their own unique artist, with their own voice. I help them to become the best version of themselves.

Max Levinson has been on the faculty of the Conservatory since 2001. He is a professor of piano and teaches piano, chamber music, piano literature, and the Piano Performance Seminar.

As a pianist, Levinson is known as an intelligent and sensitive artist with a fearless technique. His international career was launched when he won first prize at the Dublin International Piano Competition (1997), becoming the first American to achieve this distinction. Levinson is also a recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant (1999) and the Andrew Wolf Award (2005). He has performed as a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Detroit Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Colorado Symphony, New World Symphony, Utah Symphony, Boston Pops, San Antonio Symphony, Louisville Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, as well as in recital at New York’s Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., London’s Wigmore Hall, Zürich’s Tonhalle, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, Jordan Hall in Boston, and throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.

An active chamber musician, Levinson has performed with the Tokyo, Vermeer, Mendelssohn, Borromeo, Parker, and Muir quartets, and he appears at major music festivals, including Santa Fe, Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Bravo/Vail, La Jolla, Seattle, and Cartagena. His recordings have earned wide acclaim, including his most recent recording with violinist Stefan Jackiw of the Brahms's Three Sonatas (Sony). Levinson is frequently invited to serve on competition juries, including the Dublin International Piano Competition jury (2015), and he has given master classes throughout the United States and in Europe and Japan.

Levinson is a graduate of Harvard and New England Conservatory, where he received the Artist Diploma and the Gunther Schuller Medal. His teachers include Patricia Zander, Aube Tzerko, and Bruce Sutherland. He lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with his wife, cellist Allison Eldredge.

Professional Awards and Recognitions

• Andrew Wolf Award (2005)
• Avery Fisher Career Grant (1999)
• Steinway Artist (1999)
• First Prize (Dublin International Piano Competition, 1997)

Recent Engagements

• Dublin International Piano Competition (2015)—Jury member
• San Juan Chamber Music Festival (2003-2006)—Artistic director, pianist
• Library of Congress and Sirius XM recital with violinist Anne Akiko Meyers (2015)—Pianist
• World premiere of music by Meltzer and Jalbert (Boston Chamber Music Society, 2015-2016)—Pianist
• Perugia, Montecito, and Chichibu music festivals (2015-2016)—Faculty member, pianist