Weber & “Laterna Magica”

Leon Botstein is founder and music director of The Orchestra Now (TŌN), music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO), artistic codirector of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, and conductor laureate and principal guest conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (JSO), where he served as music director from 2003 to 2011. He has been guest conductor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre, Russian National Orchestra in Moscow, Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Taipei Symphony, Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, and Sinfónica Juvenil de Caracas in Venezuela, among others. In 2018, he assumed artistic directorship of Campus Grafenegg and Grafenegg Academy in Austria.

Recordings include acclaimed recordings of Othmar Schoeck’s Lebendig begraben with TŌN, Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner with the ASO, a Grammy-nominated recording of Popov’s First Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra, and other various recordings with TŌN, ASO, the London Philharmonic, NDR Orchestra Hamburg, and JSO, among others. He is editor of The Musical Quarterly and author of numerous articles and books, including The Compleat Brahms (Norton), Jefferson’s Children (Doubleday), Judentum und Modernität (Bölau), and Von Beethoven zu Berg (Zsolnay). Honors include Harvard University’s prestigious Centennial Award; the American Academy of Arts and Letters award; and Cross of Honor, First Class, from the government of Austria, for his contributions to music. Other distinctions include the Bruckner Society’s Julio Kilenyi Medal of Honor for his interpretations of that composer’s music, the Leonard Bernstein Award for the Elevation of Music in Society, and Carnegie Foundation’s Academic Leadership Award. In 2011, he was inducted into the American Philosophical Society.

Miles Wazni is a clarinetist from New Haven, CT, and is currently in his last year of dual-degree undergraduate study receiving a B.M. in clarinet performance from Bard College Conservatory of Music and a B.A. in philosophy from Bard College. While in New Haven he participated in the Morse Academy at the Yale School of Music for multiple years, and more recently the Young Artist Program at the Curtis Institute of Music, studying with Curtis faculty and clarinetists of the Philadelphia Orchestra. In the summer of 2024 he returned to Yale as a teaching artist at the Morse Academy, collaborating with Yale School of Music students.

Mr. Wazni was a member of the New Haven Youth Orchestra and the CMEA All-State orchestra for several years, and won the New Haven Concerto Competition, performing as a featured soloist with the New Haven Chamber Orchestra. He was a winner of the 2023 Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition, and will be performing as a soloist with The Orchestra Now and Leon Botstein in their 2024–25 season. He was a finalist of the 2023 Ruggiero International Clarinet Competition, and received an honorable mention award for the 2024 Yamaha Young Artist Competition.

While in New Haven, Mr. Wazni studied with clarinetist Sam Boutris for five years, and now studies with Pascual Martínez-Forteza of the New York Philharmonic and David Krakauer. After graduating from Bard, he plans to pursue an M.M. and eventual A.D. to further his musical training, while simultaneously pursuing his interest and experience in recording engineering technologies.