Leon Botstein was born in Zurich, Switzerland, to Polish parents who had escaped Nazi persecution. When he was two years old, the family immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City.
Botstein attended the University of Chicago, where he founded the university chamber orchestra. While earning a PhD in history at Harvard University, he served as assistant conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra.
In 1975 at age 29, Botstein was named president of Bard College, a position he still holds. Under his leadership, Bard has become a distinctive liberal arts institution offering undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as early college programs for high school students and prison education programs.
Botstein is music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra, founder and music director of the Orchestra Now, artistic codirector of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, and principal guest conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.
He has received the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Award, the National Arts Club Gold Medal, and the Leonard Bernstein Award, among numerous other honors.
Botstein’s immigration history has informed his life decisions. In a 2015 interview with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, he staked out the responsibilities that come with his “position of privilege” as an immigrant to the United States: “You have an obligation to do the right thing and to do the right thing now; that you cannot excuse not acting on behalf of what is right and what is needed; and that you have to imagine that what went wrong in the Second World War, among other things, was the failure of ordinary people to stand up for what was right.”
