Marin Alsop
In 2007, Marin Alsop became music director of the Baltimore Symphony, making her the first woman to head a major American orchestra. She was named a 2005 MacArthur Fellow, the first conductor ever to receive the award. Between performances, she appears as an occasional guest on Weekend Edition Saturday and as a commentator for NPR.org's Marin Alsop on Music column.
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The groundbreaking conductor — the first woman to lead a major American Orchestra — reflects on 14 years as music director of the Baltimore Symphony. -
For nearly 200 years, Beethoven's epic Ninth Symphony, with its powerful "Ode to Joy," has inspired millions. Now conductor Marin Alsop takes it on a world tour. -
Conductor Marin Alsop muses on the power of ballet and her memories of watching choreographer George Balanchine bring the music of Tchaikovsky to life with the New York City Ballet. -
At a time when we have become immune to shock and where hyperbole rules, Marin Alsop argues that Mahler's Sixth Symphony provides the perfect soundtrack. -
After 25 years directing the contemporary music festival in California, Marin Alsop bids farewell with Lola Montez Does the Spider Dance, a new piece composed for her by John Adams. -
After he was publicly denounced, Shostakovich rebounded with the compelling and calculated Symphony No. 5. The music supplied a soundtrack for the Soviet people and satisfied the apparatchiks. -
Inspired by Shakespeare, Mendelssohn captures all the magic and frivolity in the music he wrote for the Bard's otherworldy play. -
An action thriller of a symphony, Mahler's First is piled high with ambition, self-reflection and fear. Conductor Marin Alsop shares her approach to Mahler's multilayered music. -
For conductor Marin Alsop, discovering Benjamin Britten through his monumental War Requiem has been both easy and complex — a perfect summation of the man himself. -
For conductor Marin Alsop, Bernstein's idiosyncratic Second Symphony — inspired by W.H. Auden's poem The Age of Anxiety — is a musical quest to answer life's big questions with time out to throw a hip-swinging party.
