About Me

As a student, I actively sought a liberal arts experience. As a faculty member, the opportunity to forge positive long-term relationships with students, support their immediate and long-term goals, and to guide students through their musical development is a slightly different experience compared to a large university or conservatory setting. I truly enjoy watching the great strides students make intellectually, musically, and developmentally.

At the most fundamental level, the study and performance of music requires significantly more than just playing notes on a page. One’s ability to critically analyze, to ask questions, and to understand an artistic work and its relationship to history and culture are all paramount skills required to truly bring a musical work of art to life.

The courses offered through a liberal arts curriculum and via Susquehanna specifically are far more than a list of requirements. These courses offer students a broad-based curriculum developing their abilities to critically think for themselves and relate to world around them.

Professional Experience

A native of Western Massachusetts, Gail B. Levinsky is Professor of Music at Susquehanna University, where her responsibilities include teaching applied studies in saxophone, chamber music, woodwind methods, and instrumental pedagogy. As a solo performer, her presentations include performances at the North American Saxophone Alliance, World Saxophone Congress, British Saxophone Congress, United States Navy Band Saxophone Symposium, and Festival of Women Composers. Active in commissioning new works for the saxophone, she has also premiered compositions by Matthew Quayle, Andrea Clearfield, and Douglas McConnell to name a few. Her CD recording “Tipping Point: Music Saxophone & Other Voices” explores the saxophone in a variety of chamber music settings.

She presents clinics at universities, state music education symposiums. and includes presentations at MENC-Eastern, and the Midwest Band & Orchestra Clinic. Her publications are varied and include an updated edition of Rosemary Lang’s “Beginning Altissimo Method” (Ensemble Publications); the saxophone chapters “Teaching Woodwinds: A Guide for Students and Teachers (Mountain Peak Music, 2015); and a saxophone ensemble arrangement of Tómas Victoria’s “O vos omnes” (Edition Musicus, 2016).

She has served as Treasurer and Secretary for the North American Saxophone Alliance, and presently holds the position of NASA District VIII director. During the summer months, Dr. Levinsky serves as Program Director for the Snow Pond Music Festival, and on the faculty of New England Music Camp Sidney, Maine.

Dr. Levinsky earned her Doctor of Music, Artist Diploma, and Master of Music from Northwestern University, and Bachelor of Music from Butler University.

Courses Taught