One of the foremost conductors of our time, Marin Alsop represents a powerful and inspiring voice. Convinced that music has the power to change lives, she is internationally recognized for her innovative approach to programming and audience development, deep commitment to education, and championing of music’s importance in the world. The first woman to serve as the head of a major orchestra in the United States, South America, Austria and Britain, she is, as the New York Times put it, not only “a formidable musician and a powerful communicator” but also “a conductor with a vision.”
The 2023-24 season marks Alsop’s fifth as Chief Conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, which she leads at Vienna’s Musikverein and Konzerthaus, as well as on recordings, broadcasts and international tours; her first as Artistic Director & Chief Conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony; and her first as Principal Guest Conductor of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. She also holds positions as Chief Conductor of the Ravinia Festival, where she curates and conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s annual summer residency, and as the first Music Director of the National Orchestral Institute + Festival (NOI+F) at the University of Maryland, where she launched a new academy for young conductors and leads the NOI+F Philharmonic each June.
A full decade after becoming the first female conductor of London’s Last Night of the Proms, Alsop makes history again in September 2023, as both the first woman and the first American to guest conduct three Last Nights in the festival’s 128-year history. In spring 2024, she makes her company debut at the Metropolitan Opera, leading John Adams’s oratorio El Niño in a fully staged new production starring Julia Bullock and Davóne Tines. Other 2023-24 highlights include a new production of Bernstein’s Candide with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, an all-American program to inaugurate her four-season Philharmonia appointment, Penderecki’s seldom-heard opera The Black Mask with the Polish National Radio Symphony, and returns to the podiums of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
In 2021, Alsop assumed the title of Music Director Laureate and OrchKids Founder of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which she continues to conduct each season. During her outstanding 14-year tenure as its Music Director, she led the orchestra on its first European tour in 13 years, released multiple award-winning recordings, and conducted more than two dozen world premieres, as well as founding OrchKids, its groundbreaking music education program for Baltimore’s most disadvantaged youth. In 2019, after seven years as Music Director, Alsop became Conductor of Honour of Brazil’s São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP), with which she continues to undertake major projects each season. Deeply committed to new music, she was Music Director of California’s Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music for 25 years, leading 174 premieres.
Alsop has longstanding relationships with the London Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestras, and regularly guest conducts such major international ensembles as the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Budapest Festival Orchestra and Orchestre de Paris, besides leading the La Scala Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and others. In collaboration with YouTube and Google Arts & Culture, she spearheaded the “Global Ode to Joy” (GOTJ), a crowd-sourced video project to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th anniversary in 2020.
Recognized with BBC Music “Album of the Year” and Emmy nominations in addition to Grammy, Classical BRIT and Gramophone awards, Alsop’s discography comprises more than 200 titles. These include recordings for Decca, Harmonia Mundi and Sony Classical, as well as her acclaimed Naxos cycles of Brahms with the London Philharmonic, Dvořák with the Baltimore Symphony, and Prokofiev with the São Paulo Symphony. Recent releases include a live account of Candide with the London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus; a Kevin Puts collection with the Baltimore Symphony; and the first installment of a complete Schumann symphonic cycle for Naxos with the Vienna RSO.
The first and only conductor to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, Alsop has also been honored with the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award. Amongst many other awards and academic positions, she served as both 2021-22 Harman/Eisner Artist-in-Residence of the Aspen Institute Arts Program and 2020 Artist-in-Residence at Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts; is Director of Graduate Conducting at the Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute; and holds Honorary Doctorates from Yale University and the Juilliard School. To promote and nurture the careers of her fellow female conductors, in 2002 she founded the Taki Concordia Conducting Fellowship, which was renamed in her honor as the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship in 2020. The Conductor, a documentary about her life, debuted at New York’s 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and has subsequently been broadcast on PBS television, screened at festivals and in theaters nationwide, and recognized with the Naples International Film Festival’s 2021 Focus on the Arts Award.
Last updated August 2023.
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSO by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
