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. In 2012 she took up the post of chief conductor of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, where she steers 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. 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. In 2013 Alsop makes history as the first woman to conduct the iconic Last Night of the Proms. Her 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. Recent recordings include Bernstein’s
Mass (Naxos
8.559622–23) (Editor’s Choice at the 2010
Gramophone Awards) and John Adams’s
Nixon in China (
8.669022–24), 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 prizewinner 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.
See Marin Alsop’s Naxos interview
Discovering Bartók: Marin Alsop talks to Jeremy Siepmann
Swing That Beat: Marin Alsop talks to Jeremy Siepmann
| Box Set Release |
Catalogue Number |
| BARBER Complete Orchestral Works |
Naxos 8.506021 |
| GLASS Of Beauty and Light (International Version) |
Naxos 8.503202 |
| GLASS Of Beauty and Light (US Version) |
Naxos 8.504040 |
| Naxos Limited Edition 20th Anniversary Box Set |
Naxos 8.506013 |
| PÄRT The Silence of Being |
Naxos 8.506015 |