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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An American conductor explains why Russian music suits her Sao Paolo orchestra.
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Conductor Marin Alsop muses on the enduring qualities of the English composer's first symphony.
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Conductor Marin Alsop investigates the alluring power behind the grand opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra.
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As an opera composer, Verdi was always conscious of dramatic effect. With off-stage trumpets, a pounding bass drum and four vocal soloists, his Requiem Mass really packs a wallop. Conductor Marin Alsop muses on the human story and vivid drama behind one of the master's greatest works.
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To begin her recording career, conductor Marin Alsop was asked to record all of Samuel Barber's orchestral music. She quickly discovered that there's much more to the composer's music than his famed Adagio for Strings.
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Baltimore Symphony Conductor Marin Alsop's latest musical adventure muses on a famous meeting between the troubled composer Gustav Mahler and the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.
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The Baltimore Symphony conductor chooses a season of music built on the belief that understanding where we come from, and celebrating diversity, can create a sense of continuity, history and belonging — not to mention some great concerts.
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Marin Alsop says she can't remember the first time she met composer Jennifer Higdon, and both simply believe they've always known each other. Oddly, the two women have never had a conversation about gender in the classical-music world — that is, until now. Higdon's Violin Concerto is set to be performed by Hilary Hahn next month.
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Conductor Marin Alsop examines the rarely heard music from early in Aaron Copland's career. With an ear toward Copland's bold and sometimes jazzy rhythms, Alsop says that listeners can hear hints of the wide expanses that would later open up in music such as Appalachian Spring.
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Leonard Bernstein wrote his Mass to memorialize John F. Kennedy. But conductor Marin Alsop says that the dizzyingly eclectic work reveals more about its composer than anyone else.