Elliot Z. Levine holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and Queens College, and has also studied at the Orff School in Salzburg. He trained in conducting with Robert Hickok and in composition with Robert Starer at Brooklyn College. He has been awarded five Meet the Composer grants and has been commissioned by the Harmonium Choral Society, St. Mary the Virgin Church, Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble, the Church of St. Luke in the Fields, Temple Israel Center and the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble.

Mr. Levine has been the baritone for the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble since its inception in 1969. He has appeared as a soloist with Musica Sacra, the Rome Opera, La Fenice, the Mannes Camerata, Music at Ascension, the Ensemble for Early Music, the Folger Consort and the Kalamazoo Bach Festival.

Since 1980, he has been a conductor and coach at Western Wind Workshops at such institutions as Dartmouth and Smith Colleges, University of Massachusetts, and ACDA choral conferences around the country. He has taught at CCNY and Upsala College. Mr. Levine is the cantor at Temple Emanuel of Great Neck, New York and sings at the Church of St. Luke in the Fields in New York City.

About i thank You God:

I wrote i thank You God in 1991 for a Meet-the-Composer commission as part of a residency of the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble at the Mark Twain Junior High School in Coney Island, N.Y.  The original version was for six voices and the choir of that school; versions also exist for mixed choir and treble choir and keyboard. The original inspiration, of course, was the beautiful and joyous poem of e.e. cummings. The piece has been performed dozens of times around this country and in Japan,Taiwan and Australia. It has been performed at three ACDA conferences, and recently by 300 singers of the New Jersey All-State Choir.