Buy iTunes Pass
Subscribe to Our Podcasts
Weekly Radio Broadcasts
Watch Video Features
View Photo Galleries
Marin Alsop
Marin Alsop was appointed the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, beginning with the 2007–08 season. She is the first woman to head a major American orchestra, mirroring her ongoing success in the United Kingdom as principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra since 2002. The first artist to win both Gramophone’s “Artist of the Year” award and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s conductor’s award in the same season, Ms. Alsop was named a MacArthur Fellow and won the Classical Brit Award for Best Female Artist that year — the first conductor to receive this prestigious American honor. She has also received the Royal Philharmonic Society’s BBC Radio 3 Listeners Award and European Women of Achievement Award.
Ms. Alsop is a regular guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 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 Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Zurich Tonhalle, Orchestre de Paris, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Tokyo Philharmonic.
Highlights of Marin Alsop’s recording collaboration with Naxos include a Brahms symphony cycle with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and an ongoing series of Bournemouth Symphony CDs of music by Bartók, Bernstein, Orff, and several living American composers. One of her first projects as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will be a Dvořák symphonic cycle. Ms. Alsop can also be heard regularly as a commentator on NPR’s Weekend Edition segment “Marin on Music,” and on BBC’s Radio 3.
In 2006, Marin 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 is a native of New York City, attended Yale University, and received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School. She last appeared with the New York Philharmonic in July 2006 at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.
Photo of Marin Alsop: Kym Thomson
