Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Robert Levy’s life has been shaped by music — playing it, listening to it, writing it, and, above all, loving it.
Levy, 82, now of Long Beach, grew up in Freeport, playing trumpet in the Freeport High School band. After graduating in 1961, he spent a year at Valley Forge Military College in Pennsylvania, majoring in business. Realizing that wasn’t for him, he transferred to Ithaca College, where he spent the next four years.
“That’s really where the fuse was lit, you might say,” Levy said. “The experience I had there just got me very wound up and excited about music, and I wanted to make it my life.”
At Ithaca, he majored in music, focusing on trumpet. He felt extremely inspired to follow his heart and chase music because his professors were so enthusiastic about his potential. But he didn’t just play music — he also took on the position as student director of the school’s jazz band.
Music was still not at the forefront of the college at the time, and the band wasn’t even allowed to practice in the music building. The band eventually was permitted to hold its first concert in 1964, scheduling it at a time when the building was expected to be empty.
But, it was packed instead.
Levy joined other music groups in college, playing in the student orchestra, concert band and brass ensemble. He also was part of a brass quintet, which was an absolute thrill for him, and really played a major role in shaping his life.
“We commissioned a New York City composer, and got him to come up to Ithaca, and we premiered a piece of his that he wrote,” Levy recalled. “Then the next year, he had a concert of his music at Carnegie Hall and invited our undergraduate brass quartet to come down to play a concert at Carnegie. That was a big thrill.”
That’s when Levy met another composer, Alec Wilder, who made a lasting imprint on his life. Wilder has written songs performed by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and countless others. Levy became friends with Wilder, and in 1967, Wilder wrote a piece for Levy called Suite for Trumpet and Piano, and he recorded it, with the audio still on YouTube.
“It’s kind of funny,” Levy said. “He did something to help me, so I decided that after that, the man was really interesting, so I was going to stay in touch with him.”
That same year, Levy played in a concert with the University of North Texas’s One O’Clock Lab Band at the White House for then-President Lyndon Johnson, while earning his master’s in music education. Duke Ellington and Stan Getz were flown in to play with them as well.
Wilder wrote some other chamber music, including four brass quintets and three solo pieces, that Levy would play and record throughout the years, up until Wilder died in 1980. Levy also collaborated with numerous groups and individuals throughout the years, including Chris Gekker, Harvey Phillips and Martin Hackleman.
Shortly after graduating from the University of North Texas, Levy began teaching music at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, where he created the Tidewater Music Festival in 1972, in collaboration with other musicians.
In 1979, Levy began working at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, as the conductor of the school’s wind ensemble, director of bands and trumpet professor. He spent 25 years at the university, retiring in 2004.
He felt his life as a trumpet player had reached its apex, he said, because he was able to take what he learned throughout his life, and use it to teach others. That’s when he started a new adventure in music.
“I’ve been really fortunate because my life has been fulfilled as a trumpet player,” he said. “And now, composing has become my focus. I was a late starter. I probably didn’t start composing until maybe eight or 10 years before I retired.”
Since he began composing pieces in the early 1990s, he has had about 60 of his works published, with 35 more he’s working to get published.
But Levy, who moved to Long Beach in 2010, hasn’t stopped teaching and now provides private lessons for nearly 10 children in their homes.
And Levy hasn’t forgotten his old friend Wilder, who made a huge impact on his life. Levy wanted to create a documentary on Wilder, but needed funding, so he started a campaign and organization called “Friends of Alec Wilder,” highlighting his life and accomplishments on its website.
On his own, Levy raised nearly $20,000 for the documentary. Levy still hasn’t released it, with it still in production.
Wilder was said to frequently hang out around the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, getting private lessons from professors, even though he wasn’t a student. Because of Wilder’s connection to the school and his career, Eastman honored him with the Alec Wilder Archive in the school’s Sibley Music Library.
Over the years, Levy had collected tons of items related to Wilder, so he reached out to the school and donated a lot of them, even going there a few times to drop them off. In doing so, he became fairly close with the library’s archivist, David Peter Coppen.
“We became friends, and I told him that I had written to more than maybe 150 different composers over the years,” Levy said. “He thought this was really fascinating. He said, ‘Did you save all this stuff?’ I said, ‘Yes, I had a huge file.’ He said, ‘Well, we would love to have this up here. I could create archives about you because you’ve done so much.’”
Now, the Sibley Music Library has the Robert Levy Archive, filled with a collection of his work available for research. It’s a huge honor that Levy doesn’t take lightly, especially with his old friend’s archives near his own, uniting them once again.
