Published: 14 February 2011
Category: Artists

Marin Alsop has been appointed Chief Conductor of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP). She will take up the post at the start of the 2012 season. Over her five-year contract, Alsop, in collaboration with the orchestra’s Artistic Director, Arthur Nestrovski, will steer the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra in its artistic and creative programming, both at home and on tour, its recording ventures and its education and outreach activities.

Alsop is expected to conduct 30 to 40 concerts per season and will also tour and record with the orchestra. Alsop continues as Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, having renewed her contract there until 2015.

The São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1954, enjoys an international reputation and in December 2008 was named one of the world’s three most exciting upcoming orchestras by Gramophone magazine. It plays over 90 concerts each season in its 1500-seat hall, the Sala São Paulo, situated in a magnificent former railway station reopened as a cultural centre in 1999. A flagship institution of Brazil’s most populous and economically important city – and the largest metropolis in the southern hemisphere – it has a list of 11,000 subscribers and runs educational programs attended by nearly 80,000 students every year. With 109 musicians in the orchestra and a 60-strong professional choir, the organisation also runs youth choirs, an orchestral academy for exceptional young musicians, training for music teachers and a publishing house for Brazilian music.

Marin Alsop conducted OSESP for the first time in 2010, in three performances of Mahler’s Symphony No.7. "I was truly impressed with the quality and commitment of the OSESP,” she says, “and I am thrilled by the enormous possibilities in front of us. I have been incredibly inspired by the musicians' desire to make great music at an extremely high level, combined with their openness and hunger to embrace new ideas and initiatives. I was immediately struck by the whole organisation’s sense of adventure and their willingness to break through barriers in order to achieve the highest goals. Brazil is currently undergoing an economic and cultural revival and I look forward immensely to both contributing to and to being part of that in the future.”

Marcelo Lopes, Executive Director of OSESP replied: "When I heard Marin's speech at the American Symphony Orchestra League Conference in Nashville in 2007, I was completely thrilled with her enthusiasm for music as a motor of human growth. Her energy, commitment to community work and passion for music education were so sincere and legitimate that I was immediately inspired with new ideas on how to turn the OSESP into a more vigorous cultural force in São Paulo. I strongly believe she is the right conductor to inspire our musicians, to bring them into innovative projects and consolidate the orchestra as a first-class international institution. We feel very lucky and delighted with this new partnership."

Back

Previous article Next article