Music Director, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Hailed as one of the world's leading conductors for her artistic vision and commitment to accessibility in classical music, Marin Alsop made history with her appointment as the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. With her inaugural concerts in September 2007, she became the first woman to head a major American orchestra. She also holds the title of conductor emeritus at the Bournemouth Symphony in the United Kingdom, where she served as the principal conductor from 2002-2008. Since becoming the BSO's music director, she has garnered national and international attention for her innovative programming and artistry. Musical America, who named Maestra Alsop the 2009 Conductor of the Year, recently said, "[Marin Alsop] connects to the public as few conductors today can."
In 2005, Marin Alsop was named a MacArthur Fellow, the first and only conductor ever to receive this most prestigious American award. In the same year, Alsop won the Classical Brit Award for Best Female Artist, and she is the first artist to win Gramophone's "Artist of the Year" award and the Royal Philharmonic Society's Conductor's Award in the same season (2003). When she was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society's BBC Radio 3 Listeners Award in 2006, Radio 3 voters called her "a breath of fresh air in the music world" and "a fantastic, charismatic conductor," and praised her "boundless enthusiasm." In 2007, she was honored with a European Women of Achievement Award, presented to individuals whose vision, courage and determination have made a major impact on increasing the influence of women on European affairs. In 2008, she was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Ms. Alsop is a regular guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic. She is also one of the few conductors to appear every season with both the London Symphony and the London Philharmonic orchestras and has appeared as a guest conductor with many other distinguished orchestras worldwide, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Zurich Tonhalle, Orchestre de Paris, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Boston Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony and Tokyo Philharmonic.
In September 2006, Alsop led the American premiere of Nicholas Maw's opera, Sophie's Choice, at the Washington National Opera. She made her debut with the Opera Theater of St. Louis conducting John Adams's Nixon in China and in 2004 she conducted a fully staged production of Bernstein's Candide with the New York Philharmonic, a production which was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2005.
Ms. Alsop continues her association as conductor laureate of the Colorado Symphony following her highly successful 12-year tenure as music director; she also continues in her 18th season as music director of the acclaimed Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California. In addition, Ms. Alsop has held the position of principal guest conductor with both the City of London Sinfonia and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, with whom she made numerous critically acclaimed recordings.
One of Alsop's first projects as music director of the Baltimore Symphony is a Dvorák symphonic cycle, recorded on the Naxos label. The first disc in the series, featuring Symphony No. 9, "From the New World," and Symphonic Variations, was released in February 2008. Of this release, BBC Music Magazine said, "It is rare to be able to say that a performance forces one to listen to a work anew, but this is exactly what Alsop's reading achieves." The disc is also up for BBC Music Magazine's Album of the Year. Subsequent discs in this cycle will feature Symphony Nos. 6-8.
In June 2006, during her tenure as Music Director Designate of the BSO, Alsop led the Orchestra and violinist Joshua Bell in John Corigliano's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, "The Red Violin," recorded by Sony Classics and released in September 2007. Also in her designate term, Alsop conducted the Orchestra in Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, an acclaimed performance which became the Orchestra's first-ever live-recording release on iTunes and quickly became the number one classical download. In addition to her orchestral recordings, Alsop can also be heard regularly as a commentator on NPR's Weekend Edition program "Marin on Music" and on BBC's Radio 3.
Other highlights of Alsop's acclaimed recording collaboration with Naxos include a Brahms symphony cycle with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and an ongoing series of Bournemouth Symphony recordings, which include Bartók's Miraculous Mandarin, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and the symphonies of Kurt Weill.
In 2006, Alsop was the only classical musician invited to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, alongside presidents, prime ministers and CEOs of the world's most powerful companies. She has been profiled in Time and Newsweek, appeared on NBC's "Today Show" and was featured as ABC News' "Person of the Week" in 2005.
A native of New York City, Marin Alsop attended Yale University and received her master's degree from The Juilliard School. In 1989, her conducting career was launched when she won the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize at Tanglewood where she studied with Leonard Bernstein.
Last Updated March 2009
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