HOWARD LEVANT

Howard LeVant (July 6, 1936 - August 16, 2024) Howard spent his life pursuing beauty and art. As a band leader in high school and college, a folk singer in the early 60s, as a painter and photographer, and finally, as an advocate for the music and the arts in his final home of Penn Yan New York, Howard was endlessly generous with his talent and his knowledge. Howard grew up in Chicago with his mother May Wolco LeVant and two sisters Pat LeVant Spranger and Susan LeVant Roskin, surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins in the West Rogers Park neighborhood. He studied at the Institute of Design, Chicago, and ran a successful commercial photography studio before becoming a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. His papers and photographs are archived at both the Institute of Design and the R.I.T. collections. A grateful student also established a fund in Howard's name to aid students in the R.I.T. College of Art and Design, In retirement he sat on the board of the Arts Center of Yates County and Finger Lakes Chamber Music, and the Yates Concert Series. Howard married Nancy Hoffman LeVant in 1959 and was a devoted husband and father to Marjorie (Michael Gilman), Anne (Scott Prahl), and David (Carla Stolnitz) throughout his life. His grandchildren William (Jenny Goldstein) Prahl, Isaac Prahl, Tristan and Quentin LeVant, and Jonah Gilman have inherited his generous spirit and easy sense of humor. His great grandchildren Miriam Reyzl and Lev Simcha will benefit from this legacy. Howard was predeceased in death by his sisters and mother, by his beloved daughter Margie, and his uncles and aunts.