The Philadelphia Story begins for Marin Alsop
OrchestrasIn a smart and surprising move, the Philadelphia has appointed Alsop, former music director of the Baltimore Symphony, as its principal guest conductor, starting later this year.
Alsop is 67 and widely experienced. The principal guest role is usually given to a younger aspirant. But Philly needs backup for its over-committed music director and Marin is presently between orchestras.
Works well both ways.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin says: ‘Marin Alsop is a renowned and revolutionary figure in the world of classical music, and one of the foremost conductors of our time. A torchbearer, she inspires generations of young conductors to pursue their dreams. She has always had a clear and insightful vision of the role of orchestras in our society, and I know she will be a tremendous partner as we continue to forge a bold and inclusive future for The Philadelphia Orchestra. I look forward to experiencing her innovative and inspiring approach with this legendary ensemble of musicians.’
Marin, who has conducted 32 times in Philly, responds: ‘The Philadelphia Orchestra is committed to changing the future of classical music. I am proud to join this exceptional organization.’
Brava Marin. Great appointment!
Renowned! Visionary! Revolutionary! Inspirational torchbearer! Tremendous! Bold! Innovative! Inclusive!
And is “committed to changing the future of classical music”, whatever that means.
RW: As George W. Bush once said; “the future will be better tomorrow.”
As my late father-in-law once said, “a lot of people have died today that haven’t died before”.
It means putting rap music into Beethoven’s 9th.
Yes, absolute rubbish, David!
Abbreviated! Barricaded! Baseborn! Dry! Early! Groovy! Hypnotic! Jazzy! Knightly! Nimble! Nuclear! Optimized! Pensive! Quivering! Spicy! Tangible!
Yada, yada, yada.
Don’t forget Stunning! and! Brave!
As she told us all at the Last Night of the Proms.
I’ve heard so many great things about Marin Alsop now. What is her most legendary recording?
The description “legendary” is one I reserve for the dead, but there’s a helpful list of “essential” recordings at this San Francisco music blog (https://www.sfcv.org/articles/feature/essential-marin-alsop). Marin Alsop is generally associated with recordings of Americana and unusual finds.
I heartily agree with the blogger’s high opinion of “Victory Stride,” symphonic music by Jazz Age pioneer James P. Johnson, which I only recently discovered — recorded with the Concordia Orchestra she founded in 1984. The list also includes her recording of John Adams’ “Nixon in China.” She has a wonderful affinity for her mentor Leonard Bernstein, having recorded “Chichester Psalms,” “Candide” and the three symphonies, and she’s been a great booster of fine contemporary composers the likes of Kevin Puts, Anna Clyne, Jon Deak and Michael Hersch.
“ Marin Alsop is generally associated with recordings of Americana and unusual finds.” Not entirely true by any means. She has a Brahms cycle and Elgar Cello
Concerto with the London Philharmonic, German Requiem with Leipzig Symphony, 4 Dvorak symphonies and Mahler with Baltimore, Britten Violin Concerto with Vienna Radio, complete Prokofiev symphonies with Sao Paolo Symphony, many Bartok works, a complete “Candide” with the London Symphony and more.
But thank goodness someone is recording many modern American works which other conductors generally avoid.
She has as many “legendary” recordings as her male counterparts of her generation and younger…… ; D
What’s the principal guest to MD conversion rate? It’d be interesting to have some statistics, and a list of failed aspirants and how their subsequent careers turned out
Not all principal guest conductors are there for the same reason. While in some places, it may be looked at as a pipeline to being the next MD, in Philadelphia, it’s more about having someone to supplement the MD’s commitment in terms of weeks, tours, etc. I don’t think any of the ones they’ve had in recent years were viewed as a strong candidate to succeed Yannick.
Pretty modest, but it’s not really intended to be a path to the MD. Think of it more like a favorite aunt/uncle who drops by a couple times a year.
I love seeing women power in Philadelphia orchestral world. Philadelphia quartet world can use some women power too. A sad year in 2023 when a woman violist left the Dover Quartet because of all the hate received by the first violinist along with his unacceptable misogynistic behavior towards her. A friend said it is because he missing a screw socially and unable to adapt due to being very sheltered. I like his playing though so personally I don’t care. Is it true that he enjoys using the c word (that rhymes with bunt) towards women? That’s bad. I hope I don’t run into him at any coffee shops because I slapped the last guy I know that used that word.
Above all, Philadelphia was looking for someone with solid work ethics, and not a glamor-hound who would be called away the last minute to the same Vanity Fair afterparty as Nezet-Seguin.
Phildelphia needs the coverboy and then someone to actually do the work.
Philadelphia originally wanted to hire Bradley Cooper to be on stage and have Nezet Seguin conduct backstage via a video link.
I understand Nezet-Seguin then countered by suggesting hiring models to mimic playing on stage while the real musicians play under the stage with him.
The logistics proved too daunting and the ideas were abandonned.
What happened to Dry January?
This is all completely fabricated.
Sigh. Since you bring up the YNS celebrity-hopping, I’ll bite: We always lament how even the most prominent classical musicians are barely household names. So now we have a situation where a super-A-list actor who loves music makes a pretty good film about arguably the most mainstream-famous classical musician of all time. He enlists some top rank conductors (YNS) to help him and brings them before his mainstream audience to give them credit where due. And we (well you, not me) respond by criticizing YNS as a publicity hound or worse. The guy can’t get a break from you people.
Marin Alsop, have we really come to that.Danny Kaye recorded a song about a king wearing an invisable suit, the king got away with it because nobody had the guts to tell him he was naked.
So very, very true, Peter.
Boooo. She is an excellent conductor.
Of electricity, sure.
Yes, but Danny Kaye was a better conductor than all of them put together… and he never learned how to read a single note of music!
I worked with him in 1975 at Yale, and let me say that it’s all in the eye contact… an integral quality which many conductors lack in interaction with their musicians.
Ray .Still, the great oboist of the Chicago Symphony, said the same thing as you about Danny Kaye.
He was a great musician. Probably just a serviceable conductor.
One of the great mysteries of the present day classical music business is why a conductor as utterly hopeless as Marin Alsop can be in demand with leading orchestras throughout the world (doesn’t she hold a similar position with the Philharmonia in London to everyone’s astonishment?) Is it because good conductors are now increasingly rare? I doubt it- there are hundreds of moderate male/straight/gay/white conductors who could do a better job than her. Pity the poor musicians who have to endure her sub standard direction & then listen to her banging on about womens rights ad nauseum from the podium- they must feel like running for the exit & puking at the nearest convenience.
Thank you Mark Mortimer! Anybody who has any doubt about how dreadful a conductor Alsop is should watch what she did during the Villa Lobos at the last Night of the Proms 2023. It should be compulsory viewing for every (aspiring) conductor to learn what never to do.
Thanks deep West Cork. When she’s not being preachy from the podium she may actually be a very nice person to some musicians she works with (I’m sure this is the case).The point I’m making is that her conducting is ‘not’ of a level whereby she’s getting plenty of work with the world’s greatest orchestras when so many others are equally- if not more deserving.
Neither is Simon Rattle, or Riccardo Chailly for that matter.
Well, I only had to scroll halfway down the page to encounter the first misogynistic screeds by white men insecure about their place in the world.
Glad yours is a minority opinion. Many of us enjoyed Alsop’s fantastic direction of the Proms last night concert, as seen in the hearty applause and cheers.
Most definitely not a minority opinion, Carl. Are you a self-hating white man? Stop trying to obsequiously curry favor via inane virtue-signaling; it’s embarrassing to witness.
One good performance from the podium is anecdotal. Musicians are inspired, the proms are over, the crowds are great,… Getting a good performance from an orchestra at the prom is like shooting fish, and a barrel. She really should be conducting band in a college. So square and unrelenting boxed conducting technique… I’m so tired of conductors basking in the efforts of orchestras. She’s rich and famous but still not worthy of our valuable time on stage.
And she will always be a servant to herself and her own wealth and power over orchestra members. If you come in contact with her, hopefully she’s wearing flats and not heals when she pushes you down and walks on you to get to the next high profile gig.
That was an appalling ad hom.
I’ve seen her conduct a number times with several orchestras, and I’ll concede that I might have a different opinion if I’d played with her. But every show I heard was more than competent, and she’s a good institutional leader.
I also tend to assume that top-tier orchestras don’t re-invite incompetent conductors, a Philly has invited her 32 times and counting.
Now, if someone from the various orchestras she has conducted wants to step up and tell us she’s incompetent, I’m all ears.
Agents. Look at the musical crimes committed by Columbia Artists Management.
Looks like a Yannick LGBT+ box tick appointment. Despite claiming protegeship from Bernstein, Alsop’s a pretty mediocre conductor.
Is she a lesbian?
Why does that even matter?
Well Opercentric commented that her selection was an example of LGBT+ box tic. To evaluate his/her comment, one would need to know if Alsop were indeed a lesbian.
Not in principle, just in getting positions.
Because a masculine woman will be a better conductor.
Duh.
You are being VERY charitable operacentric!
She is a mediocre conductor, and has been criticized by Baltimore musicians for her acerbic and harsh demeanor. Feeling sorry for Philly musicians.
She couldn’t be nicer and more charming – to those who have the ability to advance her career. Otherwise, she doesn’t know your name.
Not to worry re Philly Orch musicians. They suffer no fools gladly.
Not a fan. Being an artist is multifaceted. An artist must be open, warm, inviting, and countless other attributes. She projects none of these qualities. And that documentary was embarrassing and unwatchable. She’s an operator … there are so many good conductors that happen to be nice people as well… I can’t imagine buying a ticket to hear her music making. Let’s give them a chance!
I did buy a ticket. Once. Never again.
For all the haters out there: Alsop is a fine conductor. Her work on behalf of American composers is astonishing and too often overlooked. Many excellent recordings of Sam Barber, Bernstein, Daugherty, Harris, O’Conner, Larsen, Harris, Rouse, Puts. Then that wonderful set of disks with music by Edward Collins. Her set of Prokofiev symphonies is mighty impressive and that Dvorak 9th is one of the best. She puts the composer and the music first, and that’s saying something. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing her in live concerts several times and have always been very pleased. She couldn’t have gotten as far as she has had she been a mediocrity.
To bring everything round to Ricardo Muti, as it always is on this site . . . It would seem that this would mean she won’t be appointed to be music director of the CSO.
Thank god….
What exactly has Muti done that makes people hate him? Being a womanizer is not enough. Plenty of conductors are womanizers. He can’t have embezzled money as he makes a good salary. Being vain is not enough. Promoting someone he bonked is not enough. I would be impressed if he had an affair with a Board member. At least he is trying to maintain opera singing standards. Isn’t that worth something?
His programming is boring and repetitive. He doesn’t go out of his way to champion living composers or try new concert formats. He doesn’t do outreach to new audiences. I could go on. Oh – and he’s overpaid.
His hair is annoying. And his lack of ear for color.
From my perspective having attended numerous Baltimore Symphony performances with Alsop, I find her to be a very competent but mostly uninspiring conductor although she has made some excellent recordings of Brahms and Dvorak symphonies. Her Mahler generally left me cold. If the PO musicians like working with her then it is a fine choice. But I certainly wont travel from DC like I have in the past to hear Rattle, Sawallisch, Dutoit ,and even Yannick. Regarding the latter I am becoming less impressed over time: The PO season must be one of the most woke in the country and he is so overstretched he might well become the next Gergiev (without the Putin baggage of course)
I recall looking at the Philly season a few months ago and it seemed pretty mainstream to me. Is the presence of any living (esp. Black) composer a sign of “woke?”
They’re very much pushing the woke, not caring about empty seats.
Her Mahler is extremely dodgy. That’s enough for me.
Mahler does dodgy all by himself. Look mummy, no hands!!
I hope she will continue her teaching program to young female conductors….when you are Bernsteins pupil, you have learned a great deal from him, right?….
This question aside, an average conductor for a second rate orchestra. Let’s continue with this choice of hiring people because of what they are instead of what they do…. rejoice mediocre people, your reign has come!
If you saw maestro, you come away with seeing younger students having sex with the older Lenny after getting some tips on interpreting Beethoven.
I plan to see it, but this is all public knowledge for some times… In these times of moral order and man hunting, he would be in a big trouble.
My point being this kind of behavior is not over, but when it doesn’t come from a white male, that’s not so bad…
Come on Norman. This is the worst thing that could happen to the orchestra of Stokowski, Ormandy and Muti. Now they have two overpaid, mediocre conductors who despite fitting the DEI profile, will lead them right back into bankruptcy. What a tragedy!
The trouble is that the world is bereft of conductors the calibre of Stokowski, Ormandy, and Muti. I’d even add Sawallisch to the list.
Sawallisch, great conductor of tradition, but he landed there 10 years too old …
Sawallisch, in part, corrected the ravaging of the Philadelphia Orchestra by Ricardo Muti, and in works new to him, he could be excellent, but in old, familiar standard like Die Moldau, the Philadelphia Orchestra immediately began to sound like a provincial orchestra in rural Germany, where Sawallisch originated. The transformation to a drab, colorless, uninspired group was astonishing. The only thing worse was the hiring of Eschenbach to follow him. But with a guest conductor like Georges Pretre or Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, they could be their glorious selves.
She rarely likes to mention it, preferring to be judged on her own merits, but she studied with Bernstein you know!
Usually, I can feel irony easyly, so I am not sure….if you don’t know she was Bernsteins pupil, you must have been cryogenized the last 20 years and just out of the oven yesterday …..
Katowice, Vienna, London, Ravinia, Philly, …. it’s never enough. Even more chances to arrive to the podium unprepared, which has been her modus operandi. Well, apparently orchestras need more politics than music, which she’s always ready to provide.
People keep using this phrase “studied with Bernstein”. Beginning in 1946, Bernstein worked with student conductors, but he did not log in many hours per year doing this. By contrast Bernstein himself studied conducting with Fritz Reiner for two full years at Curtis.
And he was mentored by Koussevtzky.
Her claiming LB was her mentor is just ridiculous. At couple of occasions he made a few comments, while hugging and kissing her extensively, as was his modus operandi. And we all can see how useful that was. A friend of mine met LB several times and at one occasion he asked him for advice, to which Lenny said ” do it yourself”. I guess he should claim being his student.
Well Bernstein was generous to groups of people but selfish with individuals from what I get from him. The precious teaching time, counted in months and years as you mention it , he received from Reiner , not sure he was ready to give it back to only a few people….so probably Mrs Alsop had the equivalent of a few hours or very few days of teaching from him, I don’t know. She was a pioneer, that s certain and an inspiring role model. But for who she was and what she had accomplished, not for her musical performances which are ok but rarely above that ( her Prokofiev cycle for Naxos is just that, ok…. but you won’t come back to it ..).
No, not a pioneer of anything. JoAnn Falletta was already established, Eve Queler had her own orchestra, and a number of other women were active, such as Dalia Atlas.
Mark Mortimer: “One of the great mysteries of the present day classical music business is why a conductor as utterly hopeless as Marin Alsop can be in demand…”
—–
Everything is so politicized in today’s world, that I’m never quite sure how much of a creative-ideological filter is being used when someone or something is being judged or rated.
I’ve seen people tuned into (and enjoying) hard-core rap music, hard-core salsa music, hard-core rock music, hard-core country-western music, hard-core classical music (Emperor Joseph II to Mozart: “Too many notes”).
It’s as though humans don’t all come from the same planet.
Add to that the way a Marin Alsop will be judged not just based on her gender but also her politics too. (See: Treatment of author JK Rowling)
She was very well-connected from the start, had enough money to start her own orchestra which displayed her lack of taste from the start. Failing upwards is all too common.
I suffered Marin’s principal conductorship for several years during the 90’s. Rehearsals – poor and tedious, almost as if she was learning the score on us. Concerts were ‘A to B’ without and real insight or inspiration. She lost our orchestra an important sponsor on account of caustic, badly judged comments during final rehearsal.
And from what I’ve heard from staff on the receiving end, her office demeanor is of the “Devil Wears Prada” variety …
Young not, aspirant probably.
Ugh is all I can say.
I’m just here for the comments *munches popcorn*
lol
Always the best part!
Between orchestras? Marin is Chief Conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Artistic Director & Chief Conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony. Can you read?
I’m not going to act as if I know enough about conducting in general to judge her talent, so I can’t share an opinion of my own, but I honestly don’t think that, on this website, any conductor in the classical music world is as despised as her. *Maybe* Riccardo Muti, for whatever reason. But I’ve never seen a single solitary compliment made, with regards to her talents, that wasn’t greeted with widespread disagreement and even derision.
Personally, I haven’t heard many of her recordings but I don’t remember having any real issues in them. I’ve always thought that the world’s view on the art of conducting is a bit overblown, and that, believe it or not, they sometimes get *too much* credit.
True Kyle- conductors are overrated- & I speak as a very moderate one myself. Also- how do you really judge how good or consistent any conductor is? Almost impossible I’d say- other than how well orchestras (& most professional ones are so superb these days- the one with the big ego on the podium is often more of a hindrance than help) respond to & play for them. My opinion on MA is merely my own- others may think she’s marvellous- which is great.
Foremost? Give me a break
As concerns comments on this website over time, it long ago became apparent to me that certain musicians have achieved the status of human Rorschach tests, i.e., people see what they want to see or have been conditioned to see, and Ms. Alsop is such a test.
For now, if perhaps not always, what comes to my own mind when I think of Alsop is the heartwarming solicitude she showed in accompanying the young pianist Yunchan Lim in the Rach 3 at the Cliburn competition: her demeanor awaiting the piano’s last entry; her moist eyes after the piece ended; the heartfelt embrace between conductor and soloist (who obviously thought she was a real mensch); and her refusal (so that he could have the applause to himself) to take a bow with him afterwards.
I don’t know what she’s like in other places, other circumstances, or working with other orchestras, but I’ll remember that class act for a long time.
Start at 40:25 here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPJL488cfRw
Nathalie Stutzmann is the current principal guest conductor of the Philly Orchestra. Yes, her initial contract concludes at the end of this season – but is she leaving voluntarily or was she not renewed? There was no mention of her in the press release that went out to classical music media. But it would seem that Philly would do well to retain her if possible. She draws great reviews from critics and was well liked by orchestra members. Of course, she is now MD of her own US orchestra, but that would not necessarily preclude her from keeping the position. There were rumors that her relationship with YNS soured during her time at the Met last season, and she’s only conducting two programs in Philly this year. Seems odd for someone who has become a popular presence. As for Alsop, she’s always been a second-rate interpreter who is only shown best in her very narrow comfort zone.
If they wanted a stiff drum major, they could have gotten one from a number of local high schools. Probably for free
Smart? Only if your entire audience is “woke” and eager for a …. to conduct. She is mostly known for not having very good taste, for being merely competent. She is a female version of Yannick, the Principal Conductor. And such positions are not usually given to younger people. This only marks a further degradation of the artistic standards of the Orchestra, and she will probably be leading a lot of pops concerts, since they murdered the Philly Pops orchestra.
I spoke to several Philly Orchestra member friends when her post was announced. From them I learned that a few members think she is decently ok and palatable, which they can handle for a couple weeks per season. The majority were disappointed that a better candidate was not found amongst their excellent guest conductors, and that merit was not central to the decision. None of the players think she’s truly great. My own extensive experience working with her: chronically unprepared, uninspiring, endlessly selfish, vindictive, lacking in off podium leadership, mean to staff, a farm hand’s physical technique, has built a wall around her true self and seldom does anyone get to see the real Marin, not good at fund raising, nepotistic. The least enjoyable work environment I have ever encountered, musically and practically. Fun fact: Philly’s artistic administrator was in Baltimore previously and was critical in getting her hired as chief there in 2005 in what became an international debacle (she claimed she had no idea the players did not want her, which was a rubbishy lie).