Marin Alsop is an inspirational music director. Internationally acclaimed for her creative approach to programming and interpretation of repertoire from the mainstream to the contemporary, she instills orchestras with new dynamism and deepening their interaction with audiences and the wider community.
In June 2009 Marin Alsop’s success as Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was recognised when it was announced that the relationship would be extended to 2015. Alsop retains strong links with all of her previous orchestras. From 2002-2008 she was Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and now holds the post of Conductor Emeritus, as well as being Music Director Laureate of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, where she was Music Director from 1993 to 2005. Since 1992 Alsop has been Music Director of California's Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, building a devoted audience for new music and playing to sold-out houses.
Future European engagements include concerts with the WDR Köln, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, Stockholm Philharmonic, Danish Radio Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, and Czech Philharmonic. Ms Alsop appears regularly with the London Symphony and the London Philharmonic. She is a regular guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and has conducted many other distinguished orchestras worldwide, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Zurich Tonhalle, Orchestre de Paris, Bavarian Radio Symphony and La Scala Milan.
Since beginning her position in Baltimore in September 2007, Alsop has spearheaded educational initiatives which reach more than 60,000 school and pre-school students, and in 2008 launched ‘OrchKids’, an after-school programme designed to provide music education, instruments and mentorship to the city’s neediest young people.
Musical America’s 2009 Conductor of the Year, Marin Alsop made history in 2007 when she was appointed music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, thus becoming the first woman to head a major American orchestra. In autumn 2008 she became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ms Alsop’s extensive discography includes the recent Brahms symphonies set, recorded with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for the Naxos label. Her most recent recordings, of Adams’ ‘Nixon in China’ and Leondard Bernstein’s ‘Mass’, also released on Naxos, have both garnered widespread critical acclaim. The Financial Times gave ‘Nixon in China’ five stars, calling it an ‘incandescent performance’, while Gramophone Magazine chose the ‘standard-setting’ ‘Mass’ as one of its recordings of the year. Other recordings include music by Bartók, Bernstein, Takemitsu, Weill and Orff, all with the Bournemouth Symphony, in addition to a number of recordings for the Naxos “American Classics” series.
Born in New York City, Marin Alsop attended Yale University and received her Master's Degree from The Juilliard School. Marin Alsop was the first woman to be awarded the Koussevitsky Conducting Prize from the Tanglewood Music Center where she became a protégé of Leonard Bernstein.
Marin Alsop’s General Manager is Intermusica (contact: Jessica Ford), and her North American manager is Opus 3 Artists (David Foster).
March 2010 / 465 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.
Southbank Centre, Mass Orchestra / Bernstein’s Mass
“…Southbank Centre’s Bernstein Project came to a joyously affirmative conclusion at the weekend with two performances of his Mass.
In her Naxos recording from Baltimore, issued last year, Marin Alsop … proved that Mass can be provocative, entertaining and extremely viable. What she has now revealed in these London performances – embracing amateur and children’s choirs, youth orchestra musicians, undergraduate dancers and a core of professionals – is that Bernstein’s extravaganza is a Mahlerian masterwork, intensely human and radiantly spiritual.
All it needs is careful preparation and inspirational leadership – which Alsop and Southbank’s Jude Kelly supplied in spades.
Here was Mass as communal rite – irreverent and unashamedly populist, never kitschy or sanctimonious… Alsop deployed her forces with admirable cool, keeping a taut rein while allowing the core performers – the dancing, singing, acting Street People – ample room to express themselves. … What this Mass conveyed above all was the personality of its creator – intermittently flawed, maybe, but unfailingly energetic and charismatic.”
The Financial Times, five stars, July 2010
“…the Festival Hall on Saturday night gave Marin Alsop and her 500 performers … a noisy and deserved standing ovation.
…as Alsop has been saying for years and proved at the South Bank, Mass contains some of Bernstein’s best music. … is there a more beautiful 20th-century chorale than “Almighty Father”, with which Mass ends? I can’t think of one.”
The Daily Telegraph, five stars, July 2010
“…it is Bernstein’s masterpiece – of that I am in no doubt – and this culminating blast of the South Bank’s year-long Bernstein Project came as close to nailing it as we could reasonably expect.
Marin Alsop – who is now all but the official guardian of this piece – kept her far-flung forces on message with barely a stitch dropped. Sorry, but anyone who can still resist the healing benediction of the closing minutes must be made of stone.”
The Independent, four stars, July 2010
“The hottest day of the year, and the mercury was rising fast inside the Festival Hall too. Leonard Bernstein’s … Mass was being staged by hundreds of singers, dancers and bands as the culmination of the Southbank Centre’s year-long Bernstein Project.
…a performance that makes you believe in it.
…the vast assemblage of voices of all ages whipped up the audience into a frenzy. In any other art form, Bernstein’s instant feelgood ending would be damned as artistically weak and inauthentic. But here we suspend disbelief, ride off into the sunset and over the rainbow in an ecstasy of some blessed hope which takes us blissfully unawares.”
The Times, four stars, July 2010
“Under the careful baton of Marin Alsop, the feelgood factor was stratospheric.”
The Guardian, July 2010
“Bernstein's pupil Marin Alsop directed nearly 500 mainly young, mainly local musicians, singers and dancers in two spectacular performances in London. … it is hard to imagine a less inhibited and more life-enhancing rendering.”
The Guardian, July 2010
Dvorak Symphonies 7 and 8 / Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (Naxos)
“…Marin Alsop… has now moved into a different league. She’s always been good, but now she is of a different order. These are fabulous performances of the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies … The way that Alsop racks up dramatic tension in the finale of the Seventh Symphony is utterly hair-raising, while the sonority of her Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is gob-smacking, with their extraordinarily rich, deep bass sound resonating in your bones. Alsop is now one of America’s leading conductors and has a great orchestral resource at her disposal.”
Herald Scotland, June 2010
“… in the slow movement and the Finale, the cellos’ singing tone is ravishing and the strings and wind are charmingly delicate… On the evidence here, Marin Alsop’s Dvořák series will be well worth collecting.”
Class FM Magazine, four stars, June 2010
Gershwin Piano Concerto, Rhapsody in Blue / Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (Decca)
“…engaging across the board.
Alsop is one of the rare classical conductors who can swing naturally. She gets this music innately, knows how to pace it, bend it, push it. And the BSO responds with an impressive mix of fluency and character. It's a fun recording that stands up well in a crowded field.”
The Baltimore Sun, June 2010
“…hearing this ebullient interpretation is akin to returning a piece of folk art to the masses after years in a museum.”
The Independent, four stars, March 2010
Bernstein Mass / Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (Naxos)
“Marin Alsop’s fiercely committed rendition of Bernstein’s crisis-of-faith masterpiece is right up there with the composer’s own – and that really is saying something.”
Edward Seckerson, Gramophone, Critic’s Christmas Choice, December 2009
“…this Naxos issue is a virtual triumph from beginning to end, and the only recording for me worthy of sitting next to the composer’s own. In terms of overall technical achievement, it trumps all.
Alsop’s tight-knit symphonic pacing delineates the structure of the work without diluting its exuberant eclecticism or softening its hard road towards spiritual reawakening: the final Communion is among the most moving passages ever recorded. She is no slouch, too, when it comes to that elusive Bernstein groove; if you aren’t dancing around the room during the Gloria in Excelsis, you haven’t got a soul to save, my friend!”
Performance five stars, Recording five stars
Howard Goldstein, BBC Music Magazine, September 2009
“Two recordings of Bernstein’s Mass in one year is a real result for Bernstein fans but it was Marin Alsop who finally gave Bernstein’s underrated masterpiece the modern, classic recording it deserved.”
Gramophone, January 2010
Adams Nixon in China / Opera Colorado (Naxos)
“…it is wonderful now to have this second … reminding us that Nixon has more breadth and durability than its initial newsworthiness might have indicated.
Alsop conducts the Colorado Symphony and chorus of Opera Colorado in an incandescent performance.”
Financial Times, five stars, October 2009
“Alsop lets you hear the workings of the music; the orchestral introduction to the second act has lightness and definition; the significance and weight of the famous ‘meeting’ scene is driven home with pounding rhythms…
Adams’ score hasn’t dated a bit. It’s come up gleaming anew… Naxos’ Nixon really is one for our times.”
Classic FM Magazine, Disc of the Month, five stars, December 2009
Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra / Bartok, Liszt & Dvorak
“Marin Alsop seemed to literally jump into the opening scene – emotional but always with clear, economic gestures, the sound precisely balanced. The overriding impression was that of an immensely intense sound that was never simply loud… Dvořák’s proportions and motivic progressions were transparently developed.”
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 2009
London Philharmonic Orchestra / Strauss, Mozart, Ravel & Stravinsky
“Alsop… brought her formidable intelligence to bear on the proceedings.
...the Second Suite from Daphnis et Chloé was beautifully done: perfect in its mixture of drive and decorous sensuality. Till Eulenspiegel was the best performance of the piece I've heard in ages. Alsop has a tellingly relaxed, seductive way with it... Strauss, you felt, would have adored it.”
The Guardian, February 2009
Los Angeles Philharmonic / Brahms
“In the opening ‘Tragic’ Overture, the conductor led a well-paced performance of exuberant intensity, drawing a richly textured sound from the strings, especially the dusky violas. The thrust of her reading, which she conducted without a score, signaled her special authority with Brahms, and that command continued in the formidable Violin Concerto.
The conductor took the measure of Brahms' conception from its ominous beginning to its triumphant finale of blaring trombones and horns. An overly searching account of this work, with its constantly shifting landscapes of darkness and light, can easily turn fussy and overblown. But Alsop successfully balanced the extremes of the symphony's tragic aura.”
Los Angeles Times, December 2008