BBC Music Magazine: Q & A with Marin Alsop (July, 2008)
It seems quite brave to launch your Dvořák symphony cycle with the New World, given how many recordings there are of it.

But then the New World, especially in America, is played almost every year so the [Baltimore] orchestra knows it inside-out. And frankly we had it programmed already so we thought, "Let's go for it!"

Hearing your recording, I felt as if the New World is not just "lived in," but that the orchestra is alive to the Symphony. How did you rehearse it?

I looked at some of Dvořák's original score and found some small things that hadn't been incorporated in the published score: for instance in the first movement recapitulation there's a dynamic swell which nobody ever does. And there were a few timpani notes I incorporated from the original; just a couple of quite small details which I'm not sure anybody would actually even notice. I also did enormously detailed work on the piece in terms of quality sound and rhythmic drive, and I think it was refreshing for the players to go to a piece that they slog through in every series and build it "from the ground up" like a lesser known Mahler symphony.

How do you feel about the New World now?

I think there's a lot of yearning in that work, but the more I read about Dvořák the less I feel it's simply his feeling homesick. I don't think he came to America simply because they hounded him long enough and paid him enough money. Because he was Czech there had been a lot of resistance to his music by German musicians; even Dvořák's publisher was always trying to change his name to something more Germanic. I think these things made him feel like an outsider, and it was a relief to him to go somewhere where he was taken seriously. So to me the beginning of New World becomes more than just thinking about home: it's sort of an existential loneliness.

Marin Alsop talks to the critics (June, 2008)
For lunch yesterday, the critics got a "Munch with Marin" session. Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony) graciously answered all sorts of questions from the critics for an hour or so. She came across as a thoughtful person with a bit of dry wit and a good sense of irony. The format was question and answer, but I'll just relate some of the information in a straight narrative.

Alsop mentioned that during her time as the music director of the Colorado Symphony the budget grew from $2 million to $11 million, and she has fond memories of conducting in Denver.

Her time with the BSO didn't start out so smoothly. Some in the orchestra didn't want her there. Before signing the contract with the BSO, she decided to go to the orchestra members and talk to them and make her case. She wanted to bring honesty, genuineness, and success to the orchestra. They changed their minds, and decided to give her a chance. She still has conversations with the orchestra and some of its subcommittees to make sure that everyone is on the same page. She felt that the musicians, in the past, had been left out of the process and were very frustrated. She feels that things are going very well.

Alsop said that the BSO had a $16 million deficit when she arrived and that in the past year the orchestra operated in the black.

A large corporation, PNC, underwrote the $25 ticket offer last year with a $1 million donation and received such good press from their generosity that other corporations stepped up this year to do the underwriting. The renewal rate this year at the BSO is very high (she thought that it's 87%, but she wasn't sure).

Alsop mentioned that studies have been done about why orchestras have had problems with their audiences. The problems don't have to do with the music. The problems center on parking, getting a drink during intermission (including the double skinny, soy lattes), box office, and other things not related to music at all.

She is excited about a new education program that will appeal to youth. The BSO is drawing from the success that Venezuela has had and using that as a model.

Alsop reflected a bit on her time with Leonard Bernstein at Tangelwood. She was very impressed with Bernstein and has come to think that Bernstein so heavily identified himself with Mahler that he may have actually thought he was Mahler. Apparently, Bernstein held a lot of the same superstitions as Mahler, and their lives have some parallels.

Baltimore Orchestra Announces OrchKids (June, 2008)
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra today unveiled a major education initiative, OrchKids, an after-school program designed to effect social change and nurture promising futures for youth in Baltimore City’s low-income neighborhoods. In collaboration with a broad array of community partners, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s OrchKids program will provide music education, instruments and mentorship to Baltimore’s neediest youngsters.

Details of the program were announced this morning at a press conference at Harriet Tubman Elementary School (HTES), where the pilot year will commence in September 2008 with approximately 25 first graders.

Among the speakers were Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music Director Marin Alsop; Baltimore City Public School System CEO Dr. Andres Alonso; Baltimore’s Deputy Mayor for Community and Human Development Dr. Salima Siler Marriott; Baltimore Symphony Orchestra President and CEO Paul Meecham; and HTES Principal Yvonne Cunion.

Under Music Director Marin Alsop’s artistic leadership and direction, OrchKids is a cornerstone of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s vision to expand the Orchestra’s relevance within the city’s broad and diverse community. To effectively implement OrchKids and to create a network of community support, the BSO is undertaking the program in partnership with several key local organizations, including the Baltimore City Public School System, The Peabody Institute, Arts Everyday, Baltimore School for the Arts and The Family League. Each partner organization will contribute its own expertise and unique resources to the program.

Commenting on the new program, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music Director Marin Alsop said, “Since coming to Baltimore, one of my priorities has been to create a school program that combines music and mentorship to have a positive impact on Baltimore City youth. I believe passionately that music has the power to change lives, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra should lead the movement. By providing a strong foundation and developing the whole individual, we can position these students for lifelong success—success not limited to music, but in all areas of their lives. The community support for this program in the planning stages has been overwhelming. I know OrchKids will be successful because it is part of a larger vision for Baltimore’s future.”

OrchKids is inspired by Venezuela’s El Sistema, the music program that in 30 years has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in that country’s most impoverished areas. Like El Sistema, OrchKids is intended not only to provide musical instruments and training, but to address some of the pervasive social challenges effecting underserved youth. To this end, the BSO’s OrchKids program will use music to cultivate fundamental life skills such as self?expression, cooperative learning, discipline and creativity, all of which have been linked to improved social and academic outcomes. The program, which will be offered to children at no charge, will fill a gap in affordable, quality after?school care in the city of Baltimore.

Dr. Andres Alonso, CEO of the Baltimore City Public School System, remarked that “OrchKids is a tremendous opportunity for the students at Harriet Tubman Elementary School. This is exactly the kind of enrichment and partnership with Baltimore’s cultural institutions we want for all of our students.” Funding for the planning phase and first year of OrchKids is made possible through the generous support of Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker. Music Director Marin Alsop has committed $100,000, structured as a four-to-one matching gift, intended to motivate and inspire others in the community to provide additional support to sustain the OrchKids program through the critical first few years of implementation and growth.

To launch and facilitate this new initiative, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has hired Dan Trahey as the OrchKids’ program manager. Mr. Trahey has been active in the planning stages of OrchKids, working closely with the BSO’s senior leadership to cultivate community partners throughout the city and establish the program’s curriculum. In addition to overseeing program operations, Mr. Trahey will manage a part?time staff of professional music instructors and program assistants. Most recently the community manager for the Hartford Symphony and the program coordinator for the Peabody Institute’s Tuned?In initiative, Mr. Trahey holds a bachelor’s of education from the Peabody Institute and a master’s of music from Yale University.

OrchKids Program Model

Beginning in September 2008, approximately 25 first graders from West Baltimore’s Harriet Tubman Elementary School will participate in OrchKids. Students, who will be known as OrchKids, will participate in the program three days per week, receiving music instruction and taking part in enrichment activities. Music curriculum will be based on “active learning” principles, and will incorporate age-appropriate games and activities to teach music fundamentals and to develop musicianship. In the second half of the school year, students will be introduced to different musical instruments, and before the end of the year, they will choose their own instrument and begin lessons. Enrichment activities will be designed to teach students about their communities, develop social and leadership skills, and bridge cultural divides. See press kit for OrchKids sample week.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s community partners will play an integral role in the design and success of OrchKids, and some have begun planning for performances and other activities that will be central to the OrchKids experience. Activities will include trips to local cultural institutions, community improvement projects and visits from local leaders. The program will also encourage parental involvement in the children’s development through family?oriented social activities, including opportunities for families to hear Baltimore Symphony concerts. The musicians of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will support OrchKids through open rehearsals, BSO on the Go presentations and school visits, and pre- and post-concert “meet and greets.”

The OrchKids program will grow as the students grow: the inaugural class is expected to continue in the program through the fifth grade and each year a new class of first graders will enter the program. As children become musically proficient, older children will be encouraged to mentor their younger counterparts, creating a self-perpetuating system in which leadership skills and cooperative relationships are fostered.

Research suggests that students participating in after-school and arts programs experience significant positive improvements in social, academic and behavioral outcomes (“The Impact of Arts Education on Workforce Preparation,” May 2002, The National Governors Association). With oversight from The Family League, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra plans detailed, regular tracking of each student’s academic, social and musical progress throughout his or her involvement with the program.

“We’re all hopeful that the children who participate in OrchKids will do better in school, and grow musically,” said Marin Alsop. “But the real measure of this program will be whether these children do better in life.”

Baltimore Symphony Website

A Sound Program for Children (May, 2008)
By Tim Smith | Sun music critic

Marin Alsop has pledged $100,000 of her own money to support OrchKids, which will start as a pilot program in September at Harriet Tubman Elementary.

When Marin Alsop began her tenure as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra last year, she put a high priority on developing educational projects that could bring together the institution and the surrounding community, especially those parts not being reached by the orchestra.

Yesterday, Alsop announced the launch of OrchKids, an after-school music program spearheaded by the BSO, in conjunction with a partnership of city organizations, and pledged $100,000 of her own money to support it.

Inspired by the success of the countrywide El Sistema program in Venezuela, which provides musical training and social outlets for several hundred thousand low-income children, OrchKids will begin as a pilot program with about 25 first-graders at Harriet Tubman Elementary in West Baltimore, starting in September.

Those inaugural students, currently in kindergarten, sported T-shirts with the OrchKids logo and slogan - "Planting Seeds for a Bright Future" - as they sat attentively through yesterday's news conference at the school.

"This will be a program for the whole child," Alsop said. "It will combine music and mentorship."

The first-graders will meet three days a week. They will be exposed to sounds, styles, and other elements of music and, by the end of the school year, will choose an instrument to study during subsequent years. By the third year, the goal is for experienced OrchKids to help mentor first-graders who enter the program.

"If one, none, or 100 of these kids goes on to become a musician, that's great," Alsop said. "But this is more about the experience. It's not about how good the kids sound. It's nonjudgmental. I think in America, we become obsessed with test results instead of the process. I want kids to enjoy the journey."

Partners in the BSO initiative include the city public school system, the Peabody Institute and the Baltimore School for the Arts, as well as two educational/community resource organizations: Arts Every Day and the Family League of Baltimore City. The latter recommended Tubman Elementary for the pilot program, "based on its proximity to Meyerhoff, its commitment to music education and its supportive principal," said Eileen Andrews Jackson, the BSO's vice president of public relations and community affairs.

The school, which has an active music program, is in "an area classified as high in violent crime," said Tubman Principal Yvonne L. Cunion. "My vision for the school is for it to be a hub for the community. I want children to feel safe here, parents to feel safe here.

"When I got the call about this project, I did not hesitate," Cunion said. "It opens so many doors for the children. [Music] will give them another choice to make as they go out into the big, bad world."

OrchKids will cost about $250,000 for the first year. Those costs have been fully funded, in large part by BSO donors Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, a longtime narrator for BSO educational concerts.

Alsop, who received a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2005, is using the final $100,000 installment of that award to create a 4-to-1 matching grant to complete the initial funding and to keep OrchKids growing in the future.

Alsop expects to visit the school periodically once the program starts.

"I'd like to come in and work with them in group things, give them a sense of what a conductor does," she said. "I'm pretty much up for anything. These kids are so cute."

The role of BSO musicians in the after-school program is still being worked out.

"We had a big part in shaping this, but we will probably not be on the front line," said Jane Marvine, head of the BSO players committee. "We felt it would be successful only if people who specialized in teaching young kids were involved. We can act as mentors and role models. And as the kids learn instruments, that will open up a whole other realm of interaction with BSO players."

Plans call for OrchKids participants to take field trips to the Meyerhoff to hear BSO rehearsals and concerts. For the rehearsals, Alsop envisions the children and possibly their parents sitting alongside the musicians.

OrchKids program manager Dan Trahey, a tuba player and music educator who has taught in Baltimore public schools and at Peabody Preparatory, will organize a part-time staff of music instructors for the program.

He recently traveled to Venezuela to learn more about El Sistema, founded in 1975 by Jose Antonio Abreu. More than 100 youth orchestras have been created under this system, which particularly reaches out to children in high-crime, low-income areas. Several U.S. orchestras have been studying ways of adopting the principles of El Sistema in this country.

"The kids there have no [after-school] programs," Trahey said. "They go into the orchestra because there is nothing else to do. I took eight- and nine-hour rides into the countryside, where I saw five kids in the dirt playing a lick from Tchaikovsky. Music is not dumbed-down there. And the cooperative learning approach means you see an 18-year-old in an orchestra sitting next to a 5-year-old who is watching and learning."

Although OrchKids is not aimed at creating a youth orchestra, the basic principles of El Sistema, including the development of social bonds and responsibilities, will be applied.

"The kids will be going to baseball games, visiting the police stables, doing all sorts of things together," Becker said. "I know it sounds grandiose, but something like this can create real social change."

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (May, 2008)
Geoffrey Norris reviews the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop at the Lighthouse, Poole

A spontaneous standing ovation was indicative of the high emotion at this concert. It was generated on two counts, first by the intensity of Mahler's Tenth Symphony, but perhaps even more so by the fact that Marin Alsop was bowing out as principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

During six years at the helm she has struck a happy rapport with players and audience, and anybody who hears the BSO often will know that she leaves the orchestra richer in terms of polished technique, keen response and a public profile that now radiates internationally.

There were no speeches, no presentations, no tearful farewells. Alsop said all that needed to be said through music. She has established a legacy of Mahler with the BSO, having conducted the orchestra in all but one of the symphonies.

Her performance some years ago of No 2, the Resurrection, remains in the memory as one of my all-time overwhelming concert experiences. This interpretation of the Tenth, in the performing edition by Deryck Cooke, was equally devastating.

Mahler, in his dying months, was profoundly conscious of his own mortality. The Tenth is a symphony that looks into an abyss, teetering on the edge of tonality in its harmonic language and, on occasion, toppling over into extreme dissonance.

Alsop's sense of perspective was secure and broad of vision, the harmonic picture unfolding naturally, together with a grasp of the symphony's structure that combined tautness with pliability.

The orchestra was with her all the way. Allied to Alsop's wide-angled view of the symphony's proportions, there was her precision in identifying the instrumental timbres that make the textures distinctive, and a fluid way of allowing long string lines to breathe but not to loiter. The impact was immense, both uplifting and draining, apocalyptic and serene.

Before the symphony, a lucid, animated performance of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto found the orchestra united in outlook with the soloist, Cédric Tiberghien, adding a further dimension to an evening of riveting music-making.

The BSO can now look forward to the arrival of its new conductor, Kirill Karabits, but Alsop's contribution to its standing will not be forgotten in a hurry, if ever.

by Ivan March

Marin Alsop, having moved into main-line repertoire with a highly praised set of the four Brahms symphonies, now undertakes what for me is the greatest invidual 19th-century Romantic symphony, Dvořák's New World—already recorded by almost everyone who matters! But she makes it very much her own, with her fine Baltimore orchestra responding with an account full of warmth, moments of high drama, and, above all, finely paced with a flowing, spontaneous feeling. One notes the delightful flute-playing, the bold, strong trombones in tuttis, and the luminous grace of the strings, immediately apparent at the affectionate opening of both first and second movements. The delicate close of the Largo, after the songful repeat of the beautifully simply and very lovely cor anglais melody, is memorable. The movement's central episodes are equally poetic, particularly the gentle clarinet theme over the murmuring bass pizzicati.

The Scherzo bursts in, and the finale has all the impetus one could want. Yet overall, Alsop's is not a histrionic reading but one full of affectionate touches, the appealing little nudge at the end of the second subject of the first movement, for instance, while the closing retrospective of the finale is particularly satisfying, leaving me saying to myself yet again in pleasure: "What a lovely work this is."

What makes this disc doubly recommendable is the superb account of the Symphonic Variations, inspired but surprisingly neglected. It is a work which after the mysterious opening Lento e molto tranquillo, which is perfectly captured here, needs to move on flexibly but with plenty of impetus, capturing the continual changes of mood and colour. The extraordinary variety of invention and scoring captivates the ear, sometimes perky, sometimes gentle (like the enchanting little repeated-note flute solo, followed immediately by gruff trombones), until it reaches its genial fugal apotheosis and the performance sweeps to its folksy, grandiloquent close. The recording is outstanding in every way, well balanced and vivid in detail, heard within the naturally captured acoustic of Baltimore's fine Symphony Hall.

by Malcolm Hayes

[F]rom the very first, beautifully played bars of the 'New World'… Here's a performance which, without making points for points' sake, has the music sounding totally fresh. The slow movement delivers some lovely moments. And while nothing is over-driven or pulled about, the finale has a real dramatic edge.

Marin Alsop shows why she is one of the most sought after conductors of the moment with this splendid new recording of Dvořák's evergreen Ninth. Coming hot on the heels of a well accepted symphony cycle by Brahms, this Baltimore based artist demonstrates that she has the power and élan to go with Dvořák's demanding music and with over a hundred recordings available, hers rises amongst the very top of the pile.

I have to admit that I was weaned on what remain legendary recordings of the Dvořák cycle under the late lamented Istvan Kertesz in stunning 1960s sound which never fails to thrill. But Alsop is certainly an interpreter of the highest quality as is demonstrated by the magical pace used in the Largo with the wind instruments chirpily intervening and creating a ravishing atmosphere.

She is no less forceful in the outer movements though, especially in the transition from Adagio to Allegro molto in the First Movement which goes along at just the ideal pace. All in all, this is a recording which will make many friends and at the bargain price offered, it is well-nigh unmissable.

The Symphonic Variations prove to be an ideal filler and here Alsop is again at the top of her game. She treats the theme with caressing ardour, and then the variations burst forth with characteristic and ebullient vitality. Again the Baltimore players produce a wonderful sound which truly creates a piece that is full of that party atmosphere which is so characteristic of Dvořák.

Recording, notes and presentation are of the highest quality throughout. This is indeed a disc to cherish and let's hope for more Dvořák from this excellent source in the not too distant future.

Listen to samples on the Music & Vision website.

Here is a Dvořák Ninth Symphony that truly is from the New World. It was recorded live in Baltimore's Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall a year ago, just before Marin Alsop took up her post as the Baltimore Symphony's music director last year. And if this performance is anything to go by, their partnership is going to be an extremely fruitful one in the years to come.

The disc actually begins with the "filler", Dvořák's joyous Symphonic Variations, and here, just as much as in the symphony that follows, one cannot help being swept up by the music-making. Alsop's grasp of the music's rubato, its sense of give and take, is the work of a true master and of someone wholly at home within the central European style. The fact that she can take her musicians with her in this almost free-spirited account is proof enough that she has long since won them over.

There is justifiably more rigour at work in the New World Symphony, and indeed this extends not only to the exposition of the piece's form but also to the determined energy that Alsop and her players bring to music that can so easily seem hackneyed.

The unashamed brassiness of the orchestra's sound marks it out as the work of an American ensemble, but alongside that there is plenty of subtlety to the wind-playing, not least the marvellous cor anglais in the famous slow movement, as well as the cameos given to flute and clarinet elsewhere in the work. The strings, on the other hand, bring a sheen more in keeping with the music's European roots.

The recorded sound is particularly warm and welcoming, and both that and the superlative performances mean that the two promised successors to this disc - more Dvořák recorded under the same circumstances - cannot arrive soon enough.

It's hard to understand why a work as enjoyable as the Symphonic Variations, by a composer as popular as Dvořák, should be so neglected. Beecham used to perform it, but it's not often seen on concert programmes. Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony remind us of its charms and richly inventive colours in this vivid, incisive account. They also do the symphony proud, proving that a warhorse such as the New World is hackneyed only in the minds of jaded performers and listeners. Not having heard the work for a long time, I was captivated by it.

DC

"Alsop is well-grounded in the standard repertoire, but she has real commitment to both American music and new music. There's an excitement about the way she makes music, the way she plans a season, the way she gets involved with the community and tries to make the orchestra integral to the city. She's full of ideas and always examining old habits to see if they might be changed for the better."
- composer, Christopher Rouse

"... a formidable musician and a powerful communicator, a conductor with a vision of what an American Orchestra could be in the 21st Century."
- New York Times

"Few conductors of her generation have made more recordings, and more highly acclaimed ones, than she."
- Boston Globe

"What she has done for audiences can't be measured."
- Rocky Mountain News

"She has shown herself to be conductor who makes a difference."
- Daily Telegraph

"Marin Alsop is a shooting star in the firmament of international conductors."
- Penguin Guide to Compact Discs

"There's no denying the wit and vitality that Alsop - a lively entertainer as well as a powerhouse musician - brings to her performances."
- San Francisco Chronicle

"A life-changing performance. That's how Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 struck me Thursday when performed by the Minnesota Orchestra under Marin Alsop. The music became a profound expression of what it is to be human in this difficult world."
- St. Paul Pioneer Press

"Alsop has again packed the houses, and made her orchestra play like there was no tomorrow. No doubt that there will be, if they continue to play like this: with greater flair, firmer ensemble, and a sense of fervour that hasn't been heard for years."
The Times (London)

"... there is no doubt that Alsop has the goods: a compelling vision of how she wants a piece of music to sound and the ability to draw that sound from a group of players... "
- Chicago Sun-Times

"With Alsop and the Baltimore players, the effect was one of total revelation."
- Washington Post

"This was a truly dramatic interpretation ... expansive, decisive, radiating colour, conviction, acumen and musicality in equal measure."
- The Telegraph (London)

"If there were anyone still looking for evidence that Marin Alsop is a thoroughly good thing, this concert... will surely have settled things once and for all... Her appointment is a landmark for the BSO... She has shown herself to be conductor who makes a difference."
- The Daily Telegraph