In Friday’s (6/5) Baltimore Sun, Tim Smith reports, “Marin Alsop, the dynamic American conductor who became the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s 12th music director in September 2007, will remain in that post until 2015 under the terms of a five-year contract announced Thursday. That contract will begin when her initial three-year deal ends in September 2010. … BSO president and CEO Paul Meecham called the contract ‘a statement of our belief in Marin’s leadership of the organization. She is a visionary for the direction orchestras need to be headed in,’ he said, ‘if they are to have greater relevance to a broader number of people in the community.’ Alsop’s interest in outreach led to the creation of OrchKids, an ambitious after-school music training program launched last year at a West Baltimore elementary school. … During Alsop’s first two seasons, the orchestra has resumed making commercial CDs after a nearly decade-long hiatus. Programming has been enlivened by the inclusion of works by such contemporary composers as Philip Glass, John Adams and Thomas Ades, and a presentation last fall of Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Mass,’ performed to considerable acclaim in New York and Washington, as well as Baltimore. A recording of ‘Mass’ is due for release in August.”
Posted June 5, 2009
Photo credit: Grant Leighton
