"It can be immensely thrilling to have that world you imagined actually become real."
Gerald Levinson (b. 1951) has been increasingly recognized as one of the major composers of his generation. His recent work, Toward Light, for organ and orchestra, was commissioned and performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra for the dedication of the new instrument in Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. He has also been commissioned by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Chamber Music American, and Los Angeles Philharmonic, to name but a few.
In 1990, Levinson received the Music Award (for lifetime achievement) of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which cited his "sensitive poetic spirit, imaginative treatment of texture and color," and his "potent and very personal idiom which projects immediately to the listener." In addition to this award, others received include the Prix International Arthur Honegger de Composition Musicale, multiple National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, a residency at Yaddo, a Pennsylvania Council on the Art fellowship, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial fellowship. He is a professor and department chair of music and dance at Swarthmore College.
