Marin Alsop becomes Vienna’s first woman chief conductor

The Baltimore music director will become chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra from September 2019.

The ORF is Vienna’s third-ranked orchestra, behind the Philharmonic and the Symphony orchestras, and has little international profile. But the playing has improved over the past eight years under the German conductor Cornelius Meister and the hiring of Alsop signifies a corporate ambition to play a larger role.

Alsop, 61, is coming to the end of her term with the Sao Paolo Symphony in Brazil. She is committed until 2021 to Baltimore, where she has become the first woman conductor with a million-dollar paycheck. No matter how well she does, Vienna’s radio bosses will not match that.