Levinas is now internationally renowned for his recordings of the complete Beethoven Sonatas, Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and his interpretation of the great Romantic and modern repertoire. His work as a composer is also hailed as one of the most significant of his generation. Today, he is recognized in both fields.

It has often been said that composition and interpretation are fundamentally complementary. This is indeed at the heart of Michaël Levinas's activity, and is undoubtedly one of his most remarkable singularities, rare enough to be highlighted.

Trained at the CNSM in Paris, where his masters included Vlado Perlemuter, Yvonne Lefébure, Yvonne Loriod and Olivier Messiaen, Michaël Levinas was a boarder at the Villa Medicis, then directed by the painter Balthus. In Rome, he met Scelsi and rubbed shoulders with his co-disciples from Messiaen's class, Grisey and Murail. They soon came to be seen as the originators of a new language and a modernity centered on perception and acoustics. It was in this vein that they founded the Ensemble Itinéraire.

As a performer, Michaël Levinas built up a repertoire at an early age devoted to both the great piano literature and the music of his time, assuring premieres by his contemporaries.

His first CD, devoted to Schumann, was acclaimed by the critics and launched his career as a classical concert artist in France and abroad.

Michaël Levinas was the first pianist of his generation to record the complete Beethoven sonatas and Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier: he has never ceased to play these works on tour.

He also devotes a significant part of his playing to the chamber repertoire, and takes part in numerous encounters at European festivals.

In keeping with this demanding relationship between keyboard and writing, he has recorded a disc for Accord Universal entitled “Double Face”, devoted to the first book of Ligeti studies and his own pieces.

As a composer, distancing himself from the strict orientations of spectralism, his creation today is very much centered around a more abstract conception of the relationship between writing, articulated around several axes: in particular, particular polyphonies that he calls “paradoxical polyphonies”. These are based mainly on a complex counterpoint of timbres and variations in temperament. (“Les lettres enlacées” 2000, “Implorations” 2007, “Ouverture des Nègres” 2004, 2nd string quartet 2006).

This orientation partly explains his interest in 18th-century Baroque, Bach and fortepiano, both in his rereading of the Beethovenian tradition and in the writing of some of his most recent works: “se briser” (2006-2008) and “évanoui” (2009).

The problematic of the fundamental relationship between “text and music” also determines some of his choices as a performer (Fauré and Schumann) and as a composer, giving rise to numerous pieces (“Les Aragons” 2000, “Trois Chansons pour la Loterie Pierrot” 2008 with Valère Novarina) and masterly works for the stage (notably his operas Go-gol and Les Nègres).

This irreducible complementarity between pianist and composer can be found at the heart of his original study devoted to the acoustic specificities of the piano: “Le piano-espace”. This is both a work written by Michaël Levinas and an interpretation of the romantic literature of the piano and its spatial, unstable and vibrant resonance.

His works are performed by today's leading interpreters and international ensembles (E.I.C, Ictus, Klang Forum de Vienne, Neue Vocal Solisten de Stuttgart) in France and abroad, and his work has been consecrated by his election to the Académie des Beaux- Arts under the chairmanship of Jean-Louis Florentz.

Michaël Levinas has completed his third opera, “La Métamorphose”, based on Franz Kafka's work (co-produced by Opéra de Lille and IRCAM, adapted by Stéphane Moses and Michaël Levinas with Ensemble ICTUS, directed by Stanislas Nordey). The premiere took place on March 7, 2011 at the Opéra de Lille, and was widely acclaimed by the music press.

By devoting his latest CD to Schumann (Carnaval, Etudes symphoniques and Papillons), Michaël Levinas returns to the composer to whom he devoted his first disc (Fantaisie op.17 and Kreisleriana) in a musical movement that is also that of the writing of his new opera.

An 11-CD box set entitled “Double Face” was released on February 28, 2011 by Universal Music, devoted in its entirety to the work of Michaël Levinas. This new edition brings together his most important recordings as a performer as well as a composer. It covers everything from his complete recordings of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier,

Beethoven's Sonatas and Etudes by Scriabin and Ligeti, to his more recent interpretations of Fauré and Schumann, to his most significant compositions for piano, voice and orchestra.

He was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts on March 18, 2009, replacing Jean-Louis Florentz.