Symphony No. 8

"...rank this among the better performances of the Eighth on disc, with particular accolades for the ASO who play with surprising confidence."
-American Record Guide

Maestro Yoel Levi is the Principal Guest Conductor of The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He is the first Israeli to hold this distinguished position. The 2004 United States Tour is his first with the Israel Philharmonic. The Orchestra is performing in 11 cities with noted soloists André Watts, Emanuel Ax, Joseph Kalichstein and Pinchas Zuckerman. In addition, he is Music Director Emeritus of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Music Adviser to the Flemish Radio Orchestra. In September 2005, Levi will become the Principal Conductor of the Orchestre National d'Ile de France. In June 2001, he was named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, one of the most prestigious awards given by the French Government. .

While he was Music Director of the ASO from 1988 to 2000, Mr. Levi's impact on the orchestra was summed up by Gramophone Magazine, which said, "Yoel Levi has built a reputation for himself and for his orchestra that is increasingly the envy of the big five American counterparts in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Boston and Chicago," Among his many ASO milestones, are a highly successful performance of Mahler's Symphony no. 2 ("Resurrection") featuring the award winning ASO Chorus in New York's Avery Fischer Hall, a featured role at the Opening Ceremony of the Centennial Olympic Games in July of 1996, an extensive and critically acclaimed European Tour by the ASO in 1991, and the nomination of the ASO as "Best Orchestra of the Year" for 1991-92 by the First Annual International Classical Music Awards.

Mr. Levi's Conducting engagements have included appearances with orchestras in London, Paris, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Rome, Frankfurt, Munich, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Israel, Korea, and Japan. In North America, he has conducted the New York Philharmonic, and the orchestras of Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Washington, Minnesota, Toronto, and Montreal among others. In 1991 he was invited to conduct the Stockholm Philharmonic in performance at the Nobel Prize Ceremony.

He made his Opera House debut in 1997 at the Teatro Communale in Florence, Italy, leading eight performances of Puccini's opera La Fanciulla del West in nine days. He has also conducted Carmen at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Makropoulus Case by Janacek in Prague, and Puccini's Edgar with the Orchestra National de France, which was released as a live performance on CD by Radio France. With the ASO, he conducted Mozart's Magic Flute, The Abduction from the Seraglio, and Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle. Upcoming operas include Tosca, La Traviata and Madame Butterfly in Holland, Belgium and Italy.

Mr. Levi has made forty recordings on different labels with various orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra. Thirty of these are with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for Telarc. His recorded music is devoted to the music of Barber, Beethoven, Brahms, Copland, Dohnanyi, Dvorak, Hindemith, Kodaly, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Mussorgsky, Neilsen, Prokofiev, Puccini, Ravel, Rossini, Saint-Saens, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky.

In 1997 Mr. Levi was awarded the honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree by Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, and also gave the commencement address.

Though born in Romania, Mr. Levi grew up in Israel. He studied at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music, where he received a Master of Arts degree with distinction, and the Jerusalem Academy of Music under Mendi Rodan. He also studied with Franco Ferrara in Sienna and Rome, with Kiril Kondrashin in Holland, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He received First Prize in the Conductor's International Competition in Besancon, France, and became assistant to Lorin Maazel at the Cleveland Orchestra for six years, serving as Resident Conductor from 1980 to 1984.