Leon Botstein

Leon Botstein (born December 14, 1946) is a Swiss-born American conductor, educator, historical musicologist, and scholar who has been the president of Bard College since 1975. On May 1, 2026, Botstein announced that he would retire as president at the end of the 2025-26 academic year, months after the Epstein files revealed that he had a friendly relationship with financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein between 2011 and 2018.