Marin Alsop

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marin Alsop

Marin Alsop (born October 16, 1956) is an American conductor. Born in Manhattan, New York City to professional musician parents, she later attended Yale University but then transferred to the Juilliard School, where she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees, both in violin. She won the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1989, where she studied under Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, and Gustav Meier, among others.

Alsop has been music director of the Cabrillo Music Festival in Santa Cruz, California since 1991. The festival specializes in contemporary music. She was appointed Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in autumn 2002. She was voted Gramophone magazine's Artist of the Year in 2003 and won the Royal Philharmonic Society's conductor's award in the same season.

In July 2005, Alsop was chosen to lead the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra following a search to replace outgoing music director Yuri Temirkanov. Alsop will begin her tenure in Baltimore with the 2007–2008 season. Her selection was noteworthy because Alsop will be the first female Music Director of one of America's top 25 orchestras. The decision to appoint Alsop was surrounded in controversy when it became apparent that an overwhelming majority of the orchestra's members were opposed to the manner in which management handled the appointment.

Alsop's previous posts have included twelve seasons as music director of the Colorado Symphony and several as music director of the Eugene Symphony Orchestra in Eugene, Oregon.

On September 20, 2005, she became the first conductor ever to receive the MacArthur Fellowship.

Alsop is noted for her advocacy and interpretations of American music, but is establishing her reputation in the core symphonic repertory as well. She is the first woman to record the complete cycle of symphonies by Brahms; it is for the Naxos label with the London Philharmonic. All but the Fourth Symphony have been released. She is also the first woman conductor to have recorded a Mahler symphony with a major orchestra, the Fifth with the London Symphony Orchestra on the LSO Live label.