Randolph Magri-Overend

CONTEMPORARY CONDUCTORS : MARIN ALSOP

Leonard Bernstein and one of his protege’s Marin Alsop. pic Walter Scott

I realise I’ll be accused of name-dropping but Marin Alsop and I share a common bond – we are both avid fans of Leonard Bernstein.  Alas, our similarities end there because I have admired Bernstein from a distance whereas Alsop is leagues ahead of me, having met the man and subsequently having him as a mentor.

Alsop met Bernstein at the Tanglewood Music Festival, the annual get-together for promising American musicians sponsored by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  It was, of course, where Bernstein’s own talent first exploded onto the world as a conductor and, eventually, as a major musical tour-de-force.  He in turn had been mentored by another musical great, the BSO’s Serge Alexander Koussevitzky – a Russian born composer and conductor (and double-bassist to give him his original metier) who ruled the Boston musical scene as music director from 1924 to 1949.

“You’re never quite sure,” Alsop admitted once, “with someone of that stature [Bernstein]  about where you stand, but I always felt he had this belief in me.”  Bernstein mentored Alsop until his death in 1990 and Alsop’s career as a conductor has developed along the lines Bernstein envisioned for her.

Alsop was 9 when Bernstein first became an obsession. It began when she decorated her room with posters of The Beatles and “a bigger poster of Bernstein”.  Her parents, who were professional musicians themselves, gave her a box of conductor batons when they discovered one of her tutors had informed her that women did not become conductors.  Subsequently Alsop gathered some friends and together they made music purely so Alsop could practice her ‘skills’.  In 1977 her talents were honed at the Julliard School of Music, graduating in 1978 with a master’s degree in violin performance.  From there she formed her own string ensemble before plying her trade with orchestras in California and Oregon.

In 2003 she was appointed principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra where she won the Gramophone Magazine’s Artist of the Year award as well as the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Conductor award.  In 2007, amidst much controversy from orchestral members, she was appointed Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s music director, the first woman to hold such an elevated position with a major American orchestra.  There she inherited a $16million debt, poor ticket sales and a 10-year dearth of recording contracts.  She managed to turn that around.  These days, attendances have achieved an average of 80% capacity – some concerts have been sold out – and recordings have jumped immeasurably, mostly on the Naxos label.  Although Alsop’s contract expired in 2021 she is currently the music director laureate with the orchestra.

But Alsop has not confined her talents purely to American audiences. She has conducted in the United Kingdom with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the City of London Sinfonia, served as an Artist-in-Residence at London’s Southbank Centre and of course her stint in Bournemouth where she also received an honorary degree from Bournemouth University.

She was also the principal conductor of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra with whom she toured Europe including an appearance at the London Promenade concerts.  The latter was the first appearance of a Brazilian orchestra at the Proms and coincidentally the first appearance of a female conductor.

For 118 years the Last Night conducting rites had been the domain of male musicians.  The day after Alsop’s Prom debut,  Martin Kettle wrote in The Guardian: “Marin Alsop got it spot-on in her speech. The shocking thing is that there are still such firsts to be achieved in 2013. Yet Alsop’s groundbreaking podium appearance as the first woman to conduct the Last Night of the Proms was not just a good day for equality. It also energised the concert last night itself, making it an enjoyable musical occasion that often looked forward rather than back, and lifting the evening out of some – but not all – of its imperialist-era ruts”.

Meanwhile the spirit of Bernstein pervades everything Alsop does.  “One of the greatest gifts Bernstein shared with me,” she reminisces, “was the significance of story; that every piece has an inherent story and that every composer spends his life trying to articulate his own personal story and answer those existential questions that are so consuming for him.  For me the thing that set LB apart was not only his embracing of the story, but his profound understanding that every story has a moral that connects all of us on the most basic human level.”

Alsop also guest-conducted the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2019 and is the first woman to do so.  In these days of the #metoo debate she is surprised that the appointment created so much interest.  At the time she felt that this was “an opportunity to try to push this issue forward past being ‘the first’ and more about how we can create many more opportunities for a wide range of women in these roles and how we can change the landscape for future generations”.  She is very philosophical about the gender debate that plagues her wherever she goes.  Conducting is a very competitive business, she admits, yet she still attributes her success to the fact that she never feels rejections are based on gender.

Quoting from The Guardian she continues: “This enabled me to use each rejection as an opportunity to improve myself by working harder, listening to criticism and developing even more perseverance. I personally feel that accepting the role of a powerless victim can become a self-fulfilling prophecy and I am unwilling to even entertain that concept!”

On a personal level, Alsop is a lesbian and is partnered by Kristin Jurkscheit, a horn player and they have a son.

With Naxos Alsop has recorded many composers including Samuel Barber, Bernstein (of course), John Corigliano, Igor Stravinsky, Dvorak, Johannes Brahms and many more.

In 2020 she visited our shores to conduct the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in “an international project celebrating the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. A Global Ode to Joy sees Alsop conduct Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in five continents, reimagining the piece for each location. In Australia, Alsop and the SSO will collaborate with Indigenous representatives to incorporate the music of First Nations People”.

Randolph Magri-Overend

Published by Randolph Magri-Overend

One of the questions Randolph hates to answer is “Where do you come from?” Why? Because the answer can be so time-consuming and, in a way, also gives away how old he is!! Plus the questioner has to wrestle with the wish he hadn’t asked the question!! He was born in Cairo, Egypt, many moons ago of British parents although he can trace Maltese and Croatian ancestry in his lineage. Educated in a Jesuit college in London his wander lust for things unorthodox drove him to embark on a seafaring career with both Canadian Pacific Steamships and Shaw Savill. That in itself dates him because both lines have been redundant for many a year. One of his boasts is that he was the Purser on the “Gothic” which ten years previously had been Queen Elizabeth II’s Royal Yacht soon after her coronation in 1953. One of the objects imported on the ship by HM and left behind was a tape player which Randolph utilised on many a memorable Sunday evening with a classical concert for his passengers. Thus began a journey that not only awakened Randolph’s love for good music but also eventually led to his extensive knowledge of music in all forms. That he loves the era of Sinatra, Crosby, Armstrong, Dorsey (both) and many many more exponents of the post-war music scene is also part and parcel of his appreciation of the music of many an era. These days Randolph is retired but still reviews CDs and DVDs and has written articles on such diverse personalities as Yvonne Kenny, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Alexander Briger, the late Sir John Tavener, Sir James Galway, Dawn Upshaw and countless probes into the music of Gustav Mahler, Elizabeth Shwarzkopf and her husband Walter Legge, Glenn Gould, Leonard Bernstein and many many more he regrets to admit he has lost track of! Before emigrating to Australia, Randolph spent a number of years as a Flight Dispatcher in Canada. Since arriving in Australia, Randolph has written for The Weekend Australian (especially in their travel pages), The Sydney Morning Herald, Opera Opera and Fine Music magazine as well as some jazz magazines. If you require an extensive coverage of your music to a public that, at last count, reaches the best part of 818,000 please contact David Kary on editor.sydneyartsguide@gmail.com or email me directly on ibmar@bigpond.com. This also includes advertising any forthcoming shows by promoting featured artists. Cheers and thank you.