Sir Gilbert Levine GCSG (born January 22, 1948) is an American conductor. He is considered an "outstanding personality in the world of international music television." He has led the PBS concert debuts of the Staatskapelle Dresden, Royal Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, WDR Symphony Orchestra, and the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the PBS premieres of works including the Beethoven Missa Solemnis, Bach Magnificat in D, Haydn Creation, and Bruckner Symphony 9.

Levine was born in Brooklyn, New York, attended the Juilliard School of Music, and holds an A.B. degree from Princeton University and a M.A. degree from Yale University. He studied bassoon with Stephen Maxym and Sherman Walt, piano with Gilbert Kalish, Music History with Lewis Lockwood and Arthur Mendel, Music Theory with Edward T. Cone, Peter Westergaard and Milton Babbitt, ear training and score reading with Nadia Boulanger, Renée Longy, and Luise Vosgerchian, and conducting with Jacques-Louis Monod and Franco Ferrara at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena.

Levine was assistant to Sir Georg Solti in London at the London Philharmonic Orchestra and at the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden), and in Paris with l'Orchestre de Paris. He was a protégé of Klaus Tennstedt.

Levine has lectured at institutions including Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, Stanford University, All Souls College University of Oxford,Columbia University, University of California, Davis, Duquesne University, and the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He taught conducting both at Yale and the Manhattan School of Music. His conducting students have included the American composer Aaron Jay Kernis. Levine maintains current ties to his two alma maters. He serves as a member of the Princeton University Department of Music Advisory Council and has recently been appointed to a fifth term as Fellow of Trumbull College at Yale.

Early in his career, Levine conducted orchestras both in Europe and the United States, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the NDR Sinfonie-Orchester Hamburg, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and the Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin. He first gained international notice when he became conductor and artistic director of the Kraków Philharmonic in 1987. He was the first American chief conductor of an Eastern European orchestra. His appointment was initially controversial because of the general consensus that Krzysztof Penderecki forced the choice of Levine on the orchestra.

Under his leadership, the orchestra toured Europe, the major concert halls of North America, and the Far East, including the first visit by any Polish orchestra to South Korea. Under Levine, the Kraków Philharmonic also performed for the first time with such soloists as Emanuel Ax, Garrick Ohlsson, and Shlomo Mintz. He concluded his tenure in Kraków in 1993.

In 1988, while working in Kraków, Levine met Pope John Paul II, at the latter's invitation. The Pope subsequently asked Levine to conduct the concert commemorating the 10th anniversary of his Pontificate.

In 1993, Levine conducted for the Pope at World Youth Day in Denver. That program included the first performances of works by Bernstein, Barber, and Copland at any Papal event, and was televised worldwide.