Marin Alsop
“There’s no denying the wit and vitality that Alsop—a
lively entertainer as well as a powerhouse musician—brings to her
performances.” —San Francisco Chronicle
Whether
championing American composers such as Corigliano and Rouse around the
world, or conducting the Brahms Requiem with the Orchestra of the Age
of Enlightenment on authentic instruments, bringing fresh insights to
the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Shostakovich and Mahler, Alsop’s
rare talent for communication, her passionate sense of discovery, and
her clear, fluid technique have won her respect and admiration on both
sides of the Atlantic.
Marin
Alsop recently made history with her appointment as the 12th music
director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. With the 2007-08 season
she became the first woman to head a major American orchestra,
mirroring her ongoing success in the United Kingdom as principal
conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony since 2002. She made her Carnegie
Hall conducting debut this season with her new orchestra.
The first to win Gramophone's
"Artist of the Year" award and the Royal Philharmonic Society's
Conductor's Award in the same season, Alsop won the Classical Brit
Award for Best Female Artist of 2005. Also in 2005, Marin Alsop was
named a MacArthur Fellow, the first conductor ever to receive this most
prestigious American award. In 2006, she was awarded the Royal
Philharmonic Society's BBC Radio 3 Listeners Award. Radio 3
listeners/voters called her "a breath of fresh air in the music world,"
"a fantastic charismatic conductor" and praised her "boundless
enthusiasm." In 2007 she received the European Women of Achievement
Award. She was named 2009 Conductor of the Year by Musical America.
Alsop is a
regular guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia
Orchestra, Chicago Symphony 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, which was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2005.
Alsop continues as Music Director of California's acclaimed Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, which she has headed since 1992. She also continues her
association as Conductor Laureate of the Colorado Symphony following
her highly successful 12-year tenure as Music Director.
In addition, 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.
Among the highlights
of Alsop's acclaimed recording collaboration with Naxos are a Brahms
symphony cycle with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and an ongoing
series of recordings with the Bournemouth Symphony, which includes
Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms,
and the symphonies of Kurt Weill. One of Alsop's first projects as
Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony will be a Dvorak series, also
for Naxos. On the recent release of her performance of Brahms' Third
Symphony with the LPO, the Baltimore Sun said, "Alsop seems to
have moved into a higher gear. The result is glowing music-making, rich
in character and atmosphere." In addition to her orchestral recordings,
Alsop can also be heard regularly as a commentator on NPR's Weekend
Edition program "Marin on Music", BBC's Radio 3, and XM Satellite Radio.
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". Marin Alsop is a
native of New York City; she attended Yale University and received her
Master's Degree from The Juilliard School. In 1989, her conducting
career was launched when she was a prizewinner at the Leopold Stokowski
International Conducting Competition in New York, and in the same year
was awarded the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize at the Tanglewood Music
Center.
For more information on Marin and her appearances around the world visit marinalsop.com
Photo by: Grant Leighton
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