Marin Alsop is an inspiring and powerful voice in the international music scene, a Music Director of vision and distinction who passionately believes that “music has the power to change lives”. She is recognised across the world for her innovative approach to programming, and for her deep commitment to education and to the development of audiences of all ages.
Her success as Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was recognised when, in 2009, her tenure was extended to 2015. Alsop takes up the post of Chief Conductor of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra at the start of the 2012 season, where she will steer the orchestra in its artistic and creative programming, recording ventures and its education and outreach activities.
Since 1992, Marin Alsop has been Music Director of California's Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, where she has built a devoted audience for new music.
Building an orchestra is one of Alsop’s great gifts, and she retains strong links with all of her previous orchestras – the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, where she was Principal Conductor from 2002 to 2008 and now holds the post of Conductor Emeritus, and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, where she was Music Director from 1993 to 2005 and is now Music Director Laureate.
Alsop is a regular guest conductor with the great orchestras of the world, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Tonhalle Zürich, Orchestre de Paris, Bavarian Radio Symphony and La Scala Milan. She has a close relationship with both the London Symphony and the London Philharmonic and appears with both orchestras most seasons. She also returns regularly to orchestras such as the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Danish Radio Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic and the Czech Philharmonic. Alsop is Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre in London, and in the 2009/10 season was appointed Artistic Director of the year-long Bernstein Project.
Since taking up her position in Baltimore in September 2007, Marin Alsop has spearheaded educational initiatives that reach more than 60,000 school and pre-school students. In 2008 she launched ‘OrchKids’, which provides music education, instruments and mentorship to the city’s neediest young people, and in 2010 the BSO Academy, where local non-professional musicians work for a week with members of the orchestra.
In 2008 Marin Alsop became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and in the following year was chosen as Musical America’s Conductor of the Year. She is the recipient of numerous awards and is the only conductor to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, the award given by the MacArthur Foundation for exceptional creative work. In 2011 Alsop was made an Honorary Member (Hon RAM) of the Royal Academy of Music, London.
Alsop’s extensive discography, which already includes a notable set of Brahms symphonies with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, is further distinguished by a new Dvořák series, which has been highly praised: “As in her live performances, Alsop’s well-balanced, passionate yet controlled, masterful and authoritative interpretation was remarkable” Neue Musik-Zeitung
Recent recordings include Bernstein’s Mass (Editor’s Choice at the 2010 Gramophone Awards) and John Adams’s Nixon in China, which the Financial Times gave five stars, calling it an “incandescent performance”.
Born in New York City, Marin Alsop attended Yale University and received her Master's Degree from The Juilliard School. Her conducting career was launched when, in 1989, she was a prize-winner at the Leopold Stokowski International Conducting Competition and in the same year was the first woman to be awarded the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize from the Tanglewood Music Center, where she was a pupil of Leonard Bernstein.
Marin Alsop’s General Manager is Intermusica, and her North and South American Manager is Opus 3 Artists.
November 2011 / 600 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