He began to play the piano as a small child.

NEW YORK (AP) — Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s earned $392,152 during his first portion of his first season as the Metropolitan Opera's music director, about a quarter of what James Levine earned in his...SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The San Francisco Opera has named conductor Eun Sun Kim its new music director, ushering the first woman into the job in the company's history. Tim McKeough, a spokesman for the Met, said in an email that he could not comment except to say that the “legal dispute with James Levine has been resolved, and as a result the case will not be moving forward.”The settlement brought the court battle to a close just as it threatened to air more dirty laundry about both Mr. Levine, who at his zenith was the most acclaimed American conductor since Leonard Bernstein, and the Met, which, with an annual budget of roughly $300 million, is the largest performing arts organization in the United States. The Ravinia Festival has cut all ties with famed conductor James Levine amid allegations of sexual misconduct that prompted the Metropolitan Opera to suspend him. "The Met said Monday that Nelsons will be replaced on the podium by Met music director emeritus James Levine.Nelsons, music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, is married to soprano Kristine Opolais, who was to have sung the title role.Connect with the definitive source for global and local news And it could have renewed questions about what the Met knew, or should have known, about the behavior of its longtime music director, given the misconduct it said it had found evidence of.But the confidential settlement leaves some of the big issues raised by the case unresolved, at least in public.The Met detailed some of the allegations against Mr. Levine in its counterclaims, which described a pattern of abusive and harassing conduct dating back to the mid-1970s, soon after Mr. Levine’s debut with the company in 1971, saying that he had “demanded and received sex acts” from a musician whose opportunities in the Met orchestra he had exerted “influence and control over.”Among other incidents, the Met said that Mr. Levine had groped and kissed an opera singer, against the singer’s will, after an audition at the Met in the 1980s, and then placed the singer in a prestigious program at the Met. Not lacking self-confidence, he said, "I feel stronger than ever. The case could have put into the public record more details of the accusations against Mr. Levine, and about his closely guarded private life; before the suit was settled, Mr. Levine’s lawyers had been fighting a request by the Met for his medical records.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra, which Levine headed from 2004 until 2011, also severed contact with its onetime music director.The accusations of abuse go back to the 1970s. In 2016 he resigned as the Met's music director, becoming music director emeritus and head of the company's young artists program.Now that the musician has been stripped of all honors, offices and distinctions, it seems difficult to imagine that only five years ago On James Levine's 75th birthday, the dream does in fact seem over.The Metropolitan Opera in New York has fired famed conductor James Levine after an investigation found evidence that he sexually abused and harassed younger musicians.

"Finding Freedom" is the most recent biography about Prince Harry and his wife Meghan. Levine conducted from a motorized wheelchair, with a special platform designed to accommodate the wheelchair, which could rise and descend like an elevator.For many years, both Levine and the Met denied as unfounded the rumors that Levine had On December 2, 2017, it was revealed publicly that a police report—dating from October 2016—detailed that Levine had allegedly One accuser said that in the summer of 1968 when he was a 17-year-old high school student, and attending Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan, Levine (then a 25-year-old faculty member, who was the conductor of the school's orchestra and the director of its orchestral institute) A second accuser said that that same summer, Levine told him to take his clothing off and also masturbated him, when he was 17 years old and a cello student, and that Levine then initiated with the teenager a number of sexual encounters that have since haunted him.A third accuser, a violinist and pianist who grew up in Illinois near the Ravinia Music Festival (a prominent summer program for aspiring musicians) which Levine led as its music director from 1971 to 1993, said that he was sexually abused by Levine beginning when the accuser was 16 years old (and Levine was in his 40s) in the summer of 1986.On December 4, a fourth male, who later had a long career as a violinist in the In response to the December 2017 news article, the Metropolitan Opera announced that it would investigate Levine with regard to the sexual abuse allegations that date back to the 1980s that were set forth in the 2016 police report.

He is primarily known for his tenure as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera (the "Met"), a position he held for 40 years (1976–2016). He has recorded extensively with many orchestras, and especially often with the Metropolitan Opera.

He was formally terminated by the Met from all his positions and affiliations with the company on March 12, 2018 over sexual misconduct allegations, which he denies. "The investigation should have been done decades ago.