Music Director Marin Alsop
“A deeply committed musician, who combines a level of professionalism with a warmth and generosity of spirit that can’t fail to endear her to musicians and to her audiences.” Gramophone Magazine Artist of the Year 2003.
Marin Alsop was appointed Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in 2002: “The new lease of life that Marin Alsop has brought to the Bournemouth Symphony was apparent both in the fine quality of the playing and in the fact that the hall was packed”. (The DailyTelegraph).
She became 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, and has received worldwide praise for her extraordinary ability to communicate a fresh and searching vision in a wide range of repertoire, from the great 19th century symphonies through to cutting-edge contemporary repertoire. She is currently recording the Brahms symphonies with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Naxos.
In 2003/4 Alsop returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony, in addition to having conducted most of the other major U.S. and Canadian orchestras. Alsop also made her debut with the Opera Theater of St. Louis conducting John Adams’ Nixon in China and conducted a fully staged production of Bernstein’s Candide with the New York Philharmonic:
“Authority flowed through her and up to the stage. John Adams's orchestral textures had a soft, Romantic nap, but the treacherous asymmetries of movement glowed precisely and with confidence” (New York Times)
“Much of the production was beguiling, starting with the fine conducting of Marin Alsop...She proved that the way to make the charm and richness of the score come through is to respect the music. The Philharmonic responded with stylish and beautifully relaxed playing” (New York Times).
After a highly successful ten-year tenure as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony, Alsop has accepted the title of Music Director Laureate of that orchestra; she also continues as Music Director of the highly respected Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz for her 14th Season.
Alsop is one of the few conductors to appear every season with both the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and she has conducted many distinguished orchestras throughout Europe including the Orchestre de Paris and Bavarian Radio Symphony. She has held the position of Principal Guest Conductor of both the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the City of London Sinfonia. Her debuts next season include the Munich Philharmonic and the Tokyo Philharmonic.
Alsop’s successful collaboration with Naxos Records has produced a critically acclaimed complete Barber orchestral cycle with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in addition to numerous other releases in a wide range of repertoire. In 2003 Naxos released her first recording with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, featuring music of her mentor, Leonard Bernstein. This debut CD was selected by Gramophone as Editor’s Choice, and the New York Times said of this recording, “the Bournemouth Symphony, in technically adept, bracing performances, plays like a top-notch orchestra”.
Alsop is a native of New York City; she attended Yale University and received her Master’s Degree from the Juilliard School. In 1989 she was awarded the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she was a pupil of Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, and Gustav Meier. The same year she was a prizewinner at the Leopold Stokowski International Conducting Competition in New York.
Marin Alsop’s general manager is Intermusica (contact: Susie McLeod), and her North American manager is ICM Artists (contact: Rachel Bowron).
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