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 having met the man and subsequently finding herself being in the enviable position of 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.

But harking back to Alsop’s fatalistic meeting with Bernstein in 1989, Alsop quotes a recently published book in which the author asks Bernstein his predictions for the next great conductor and Bernstein speaks only of Alsop.  “You’re never quite sure,” Alsop admits, “with someone of that stature about where you stand, but I always felt he had this belief in me.” Bernstein mentored Alsop until his death in 1990 and in many ways Alsop’s career as a conductor has developed along the lines Bernstein envisioned for her.

Alsop was 9 when Bernstein first became an obsession and 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 practise her burgeoning conductor skills. Her talents were subsequently honed at the renowned Juillard 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 and 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.  She inherited a $16million debt, poor ticket sales and a 10-year dearth of recording contracts. But 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.  Alsop’s contract has been extended to 2021.

Alsop’s achievements up to then have been dwarfed by her selection as the first woman in history to conduct the Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London.  That was in 2013.

For 118 years the Last Night conducting rites has 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 2013 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.”

In 2012, Alsop became principal conductor of the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra  (OSESP), the first female principal conductor of OSESP.   Alsop is also chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and is the first woman to hold that position.  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 concludes: “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!”

Stop Press:  The Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s programme for 2020 has recently been released and Marin Alsop returns to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (and I’m quoting here from the official announcement) “with 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.”  The dates are August 7 – 9.