Marin Alsop: The Inspiring Conductor Revolutionizing Classical Music

2023-07-15 14:47:07

July 15, 2023 at 9:05 am

“I have a lot in common with this orchestra: They share my enthusiasm for constantly expanding the repertoire and for contact with new audiences,” explained Marin Alsop when signing the contract with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. “I was very touched that it was the musicians themselves who gave the impetus to get in touch with me.” From September 2019, the US conductor succeeded Cornelius Meister at the podium of the RSO.

Marin Alsop, born October 16, 1956 in New York, studied at Yale and the Juilliard School before beginning her career as a conductor in the late 1980s. None other than Leonard Bernstein accompanied the career of the young Alsop. When she did not receive an offer that would have matched her talents, she founded her own orchestra in 1984: Concordia. She broke the glass ceiling and took over the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2007, which she has directed ever since.

Marin Alsop now lives in Baltimore, the American city that has to struggle most with poverty, crime and racial conflicts. Alsop is involved with the “Orchkids” for musical education and school support for destitute black African children. With her humorous temperament and her energy, she has learned to assert herself in a male domain: “I try to give 48 hours every day to accommodate everything – simply because I enjoy it so much!”

In addition to the RSO, where she conducted a program with Mahler and Bernstein in 2014, Alsop has also been a guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and has led top institutions such as the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic . In 2013 she was the first female conductor to be responsible for the legendary London “Last Night of the Proms”. Even before her debut in Vienna, Thomas Angyan, the artistic director of the Wiener Musikverein, gave her praise: “Exciting encounters with innovative programs outside the mainstream can be expected.”

“Every obstacle opens up new possibilities for me”.

The conductor Marin Alsop. Repeat from 09/28/2019
Redaktion: Eva Roither