Bruce Levingston is an acclaimed American concert pianist and recording artist. Levingston has appeared in important venues throughout the world including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Boston Opera House, Teatro Reggio, and the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. A leading interpreter of contemporary classical music and renowned for his innovative programming, The New Yorker has called him "the essential New York pianist," praising his advocacy of new music and noting that "this thoughtful pianist has enriched the instrument's repertoire considerably."

Levingston's solo recordings have received notable accolades. His album Heavy Sleep was named one of the "Best Classical Recordings of the Year" by The New York Times, which lauded his "mastery of color and nuance." Gramophone praised his "masterly textural control"; The Arts Desk called his playing "sublime"; and the American Record Guide wrote that "Levingston is a pianist's pianist," praising his "stunning and illuminating performances." With tens of millions of plays on Spotify and Apple Music, Levingston ranks among today’s most-streamed classical artists.

Levingston has collaborated with many prominent figures and institutions, including Brooklyn Rider, dancers Herman Cornejo and Alessandra Ferri, Ethan Hawke, Colin and Eric Jacobsen; authors Michael Cunningham, Nick McDonnell, George Plimpton, and Kevin Young; and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), the Aspen Institute and Aspen Music Festival, the French Institute / Alliance Française (FIAF), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

In 2001, Levingston founded Premiere Commission, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the work of emerging and contemporary composers. He has facilitated the creation and premieres of new works by many important composers including Timo Andres, Lisa Bielawa, William Bolcom, David Bruce, Sebastian Currier, David Del Tredici, Nolan Gasser, Philip Glass, David T. Little, Keeril Makan, James Matheson, George Perle, Wolfgang Rihm, Cecil Price Walden, Charles Wuorinen, and Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky. Most recently, he recorded the premiere of a new solo work written for him by Missy Mazzoli.

Levingston has had a long association with Philip Glass. In 2004, he commissioned Glass to compose "A Musical Portrait of Chuck Close," premiering the work at Lincoln Center the following year and recording it for his album Portraits. Levingston later performed the work live for American Ballet Theatre's premiere production of Jorma Elo's C. to C. (Close to Chuck). In 2006, Levingston played piano duos with Glass at Lincoln Center and, in December 2014, performed alongside Glass and others for the premiere performance of the composer's complete Etudes at BAM. Levingston's recordings of Glass's music are also featured on his albums Nightbreak and Dreaming Awake, and on the soundtracks of Scott Hicks's film Glass: A Portrait in Twelve Parts and Marion Cajori's film Chuck Close.

Born in the Mississippi Delta, Levingston studied with Hungarian pianist Elizabeth Buday. While still in high school, he studied in Switzerland with Béla Böszörményi-Nagy. Levingston attended Darlington School, graduating with honors in 1979. In 1983, he received a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in the Humanities Honors program at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied with Nancy Burton Garrett and Elliott Antokoletz. Levingston continued post-graduate studies at the Royal Conservatory of Toronto under Anton Kuerti and the Aaron Copland School of Music under Morey Ritt and Carl Schachter. In summers, he attended the Aspen Music School and Festival, studying under Herbert Stessin, and later appeared there as a guest artist.

A lifelong advocate for human and animal rights, Levingston performed to free "refuseniks" from the Soviet Union, served as a Young Leader for the American Council on Germany, and performed at the United Nations to honor the heroism of the people of Denmark during World War II. Levingston co-commissioned and gave the Carnegie Hall premiere of Repast, an oratorio based on the life of civil rights–era figure Booker Wright. In 2017, Levingston performed Price Walden's Sacred Spaces at the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, later premiering the work at Carnegie Hall.

In 2025, Levingston established an endowment at the University of Mississippi to preserve Rowan Oak, William Faulkner's historic home in Oxford. Named the Bruce Levingston Rowan Oak Fund, the initiative restored the Faulkner family piano as its inaugural project. Levingston gave a commemorative concert at Rowan Oak in September of that year.

Levingston has written for Piano and Keyboard and is author of Bright Fields: The Mastery of Marie Hull, a comprehensive survey of the life and work of the noted Mississippi artist. In 2006, Levingston was awarded the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. In 2017, he was inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame. In 2018, the Governor of Mississippi proclaimed April 9th Bruce Levingston Day for his contributions to education and the arts. Levingston serves as the Chancellor's Honors College Artist in Residence and is holder of the Lester Glenn Fant Chair at the University of Mississippi. He resides in Oxford, Mississippi, and New York City.