Teacher-Scholar Legacies: Kathy Levy
By Elizabeth A. Clendinning, Associate Professor of Music and Joanne Inkman, Teaching Professor of Music
Anyone who has regularly traversed the Scales Fine Arts Center breezeway in the afternoon has likely heard a singular sound of the flute, wafting down from the heavens as if by magic. This mellifluous sound originates in the studio of Kathryn (Kathy) Levy, whose playing and mentorship have animated the Wake Forest University campus for nearly 50 years.
Kathy grew up in a home full of music. All three of her elder sisters took piano lessons, and from an early age, Kathy recalls sitting under the piano and listening to them play. She soon joined them, beginning to study piano at age five and flute in fourth grade, inspired by hearing the instrument on symphonic records geared for children. Several years later, with no advanced study options in her small California hometown, Kathy’s parents began driving her 60 miles to San Jose for regular lessons, and eventually 100 miles to San Francisco every other week. “My parents were great that way,” she recalls. “They saw that it was something that I was doing well in, so, whatever it took.” Their collective dedication paid off: for college, Kathy enrolled at Eastman School of Music, where she earned both her bachelor’s degree and the coveted Performer’s Certificate.
As a young adult, Kathy would move across the country again to Wake Forest University, where she and her husband, musicologist David Levy, both joined the Department of Music in 1976. Wake Forest was a different place at that time. She recalls that a more leisurely pace of life and study allowed students to devote several hours per day to practicing. There were even more student flute players than there were spots available for them in the University ensembles. In response, in the early 1980s, Kathy founded the WFU Flute Choir and worked to grow the University’s chamber music opportunities. These programs increased performance opportunities for not only budding flautists but also student woodwind players more generally.
As her flute studio continued to grow, Kathy grew opportunities for them to perform. In 1988, she founded the annual Flute Fest, which has run under her directorship for 38 years. The event featured not only WFU students but also the professional Silver Winds Flute Choir (which Kathy co-founded and directs) and flute players of all levels from the community. At its height, nearly fifty musicians would crowd onstage to perform the final piece of the show. Though the musicians came for the musical community, they stayed for the cookies: mounded trays of confections that Kathy herself baked, inspired by the overwhelming bounty of the cookies presented at receptions held by her congregation at Temple Emanuel.
Kathy’s teaching at Wake Forest embodies only one facet of her extensive professional career. In 1976, she also began to perform with the Winston-Salem Symphony, where she is now Principal Flute. Her annual summer residencies with the Chautauqua Symphony, where she now serves as Piccoloist, began in the same year. Her performance work has taken her across the state, the country, and the world, including most notably touring Europe three times as a part of the American Sinfonietta.
Yet her collaborations closer to home have also been extremely meaningful, including with the Opus 5 Faculty Woodwind Quintet (which she co-founded); the Carolina Chamber Players; and her faculty colleagues at WFU. WFU faculty pianist Joanne Inkman notes:
I have had the pleasure of being the pianist in the WFU Faculty Trio with Kathy Levy and Anna Lampidis for the past 10 years. In my opinion, Kathy is a consummate musician and artist. I am so thankful to have performed concerts with her. She has a rich, beautiful tone, vibrant rhythm, impeccable phrasing, expressiveness, expert technique, and creative musical interpretations. For years, Kathy has treated audiences to superlative music-making through solos, chamber music, orchestral music, coaching, teaching, and conducting. I’ve watched her students excel and improve under her tutelage. She is a humble, generous, gracious, positive, encouraging, and supportive colleague and friend.
Students appreciated not only Kathy’s artistry but her support for them as artists and as people.
Katarina Sams (WFU ‘22), who is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Flute Performance at Shenandoah Conservatory, notes:
During my time at Wake Forest, and even to this day, Professor Levy has been nothing but supportive towards me! She could see that I had talent and was very keen to develop it more, as much as I was keen to learn more. Professor Levy really cared about me both on an artistic level and a personal level. She knew that I was an international student and adapting to an entirely different culture was hard enough, but she made it easier for me. She always has a special place in my heart, and she has made an exceptional mark within the Music Department.
Janani Krishnakumar, a current WFU junior, additionally provided glowing praise of Professor Levy’s wisdom on and off the stage, as well as her incessant support. She recalls:
My sound has matured a lot over the years, and it is due to Professor Levy that I have learned to put subtlety, contrast, and colour into what I play. She would often tell me to save largeness for where it matters, and to build up to it in my expression and to savor sweeter sounds…
The lessons I have learned from her have made a huge difference to my playing, and as music is, a lot of these skills have been transferable. I have found that these lessons that I have learned from her permeate through my everyday life. In learning how to work with others as a musician, I’ve learned to better communicate in academics. In learning how to be more brave in playing, I have become a better orator and more confident around others. If I can have a literal spotlight on me while being judged for what I’m doing, I feel like I could do anything.
Though some of Kathy’s students have gone on to careers as high-level performers, she also enjoys hearing that former students occasionally brush off their instruments to play. Her biggest goal for all students? She says, “I just want them to keep playing.”
We are grateful for Kathy’s gift to all of us in the Wake Forest community: a lifetime of inspiration to keep making music.