Harvey Sachs

Harvey Sachs’s most recent book, Toscanini: Musician of Conscience (Liveright, 2017), was preceded by nine others, of which there are more than 70 editions in 17 languages. They include Rubinstein: A Life; Virtuoso; Music in Fascist Italy; Reflections on Toscanini; The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824; The Letters of Arturo Toscanini, which Mr. Sachs edited and translated; and, as co-author, Plácido Domingo’s My First Forty Years and Sir Georg Solti’s Memoirs. He has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Times Literary Supplement, and many other publications; and for the BBC, PBS, CBC, Arte, RAI, and other radio and television networks.

Mr. Sachs has lectured at universities and cultural institutions worldwide; has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and the National Endowment for the Humanities; and holds an honorary doctorate from the Cleveland Institute of Music. From 2011 to 2013, he was the New York Philharmonic Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence.

Mr. Sachs lived in Europe for over 30 years. He is a frequent contributor to the Sunday cultural supplement of Il Sole—24 Ore, one of Italy’s leading newspapers, and is a former artistic director of Milan’s prestigious Società del Quartetto. In 2017 he received the title of Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia (Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy) from President Sergio Mattarella for his contributions to Italian culture.

Mr. Sachs joined the Curtis faculty in 2009.