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Reinforcing her established worldwide reputation and her elevated critical standing in Great Britain, American conductor Marin Alsop was featured on the cover of BBC Music Magazine in November.
“Alsop has been a crucial agent for change in classical music,” wrote music critic Stephen Moss. “Her mentor in the 1980s was Leonard Bernstein, and she is made from the same mold in terms of her evangelizing, energizing, democratizing mission, with the added ingredient that she has almost singlehandedly made it normal for women to conduct orchestras.”
While Alsop, 66, was pleased by the journalistic accolade, it was hardly her first such honor. She was named Gramophone magazine’s Artist of the Year in 2003 and was showcased previously on the BBC cover when she was principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony in 2002-08 — the first woman to hold that position. “It’s a nice honor, always,” she said of such recognition.
Chicago audiences’ latest chance to see and hear Alsop in action will come Jan. 6-7 when she leads an unusual all-contemporary program with three woman-composed works in their debut performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Its centerpiece will be the Midwest debut of Julia Wolfe’s Her Story, a tribute to American women who have fought for equality. A 45-minute work for 10 female voices and orchestra, the piece was premiered in September by the Nashville (Tenn.) Symphony, one of five orchestras that co-commissioned that work, including the CSO.
The idea to build an all-female lineup of works around the Wolfe co-commission came from Cristina Rocca, the CSO’s vice president of artistic administration. “Cristina and the orchestra were interested in really going for it,” Alsop said. Though Alsop admires Wolfe’s music, she has conducted little of it, so she is especially looking forward to leading the Pulitzer Prize winner’s work. The vocal part will be performed by the Lorelei Ensemble, which has presented dozens of world and regional premieres.
The rest of the program will consist of Rounds, for piano and string orchestra, by Jessie Montgomery, the CSO’s Mead Composer-in-Residence. “I love her music,” Alsop said. “It really speaks to me.” The concerto will feature soloist Awadagin Pratt, who performed the work’s world premiere in March 2022 by the Hilton Head (S.C) Symphony and has been featured in all subsequent performances.
To round out the program, Alsop decided to present a piece by Anna Clyne, a previous CSO composer-in-residence. Although Alsop has led other works by the British-born Clyne, this will be her first outing with Midnight Hour (2015). “It’s a piece I have wanted to do for a while,” she said.
Providing what Alsop called a “thread of connection” between the three pieces are the shared ties to texts. The works by Clyne and Montgomery were inspired by poems, the latter drawing on imagery and themes from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Her Story pulls from multiple sources, including a letter written by Abigail Adams, as well as the words of those who have opposed women’s rights activists.
Wolfe and Clyne are scheduled to attend the concerts, and Alsop is hoping that Montgomery will be able to take part as well. “I’m sure I’ll speak a bit about each piece or have the composers say a few words,” she said.
“I enjoy working with them whenever and wherever.” — Marin Alsop on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Besides Zell Music Director Riccardo Muti, few conductors know the CSO better or have spent more time in front of the ensemble in recent years than Alsop. In 2018 and 2019, she served as curator of the Ravinia Festival’s celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s centennial, including a 14-concert tribute in the first season with the CSO front and center as the summer event’s longtime orchestra-in-residence.
Earlier this year, she completed her second summer as Ravinia’s first-ever chief conductor and curator, a position that calls on her to spend three weeks each year with the CSO. In February, festival officials announced that her tenure had been extended through 2025, and it wouldn’t be surprising if it were augmented again.
“I love the orchestra,” Alsop said. “I don’t know the public downtown as I well I do at Ravinia. But I love the people at Ravinia — fantastic audiences and supporters. I think it’s going great.”
She likes to program newer and sometimes more experimental works with the CSO at Ravinia, and she has found the musicians to be receptive. “They seem interested and curious,” she said. “They were so cool when we did the [Bernstein] Mass the first time and then the second time.”
Although Alsop cannot yet talk about what she has planned at Ravinia for 2023, she promises another exciting season. “We’re just trying to keep that buzz and momentum going,” she said. In the meantime, she is looking forward to leading the CSO in January. “I enjoy working with them whenever and wherever,” she said.
In addition to her Ravinia post and a teaching position at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Alsop is in her fourth year as chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, one of the three major orchestras in the Austrian capital. “I love the orchestra. I love the city. I love the audience. It’s really rewarding artistically and musically.” Like her Ravinia post, her music directorship there was extended through 2025.
Alsop wondered if it would feel intimidating to work in a city where some of classical music’s greatest figures have lived, worked and scored some of their biggest successes, but the opposite has occurred. “It feels much more embracing in a way,” she said. “For me to conduct at the Musikverein, where I watched so many of Lenny’s videos of all the Mahler symphonies, to be standing in the same spot, it’s really moving to me.”
Alsop and her partner have an apartment in Vienna, and she tries to enjoy the city as much as she can when she isn’t working. “It’s nice, because it’s very homey,” she said of their pied-à-terre. “We’ve furnished and equipped it, and I have a lot of my own stuff there, and so it’s great.”
