“Female conductors are about as rare on the podium as they are running Silicon Valley companies,” writes Rachel Myrow on Friday at radio station KQED (Southern California). “As recently as 2007, Marin Alsop became the first woman to head a major symphony in the US, in Baltimore. In 2013, she became the first woman to conduct the lauded Last Night at the Proms in London. And according to the League of American Orchestras, a national service organization for symphonies, Alsop’s still the only woman music director in the top 24. And this year, at the age of 59, the conductor takes her final bow after 25 years of running the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, one of the world’s most esteemed events for music by living composers.… In addition to her position as the Baltimore Symphony’s music director, Alsop travels the globe to undertake a host of other high-profile gigs.… Jesse Rosen, President and CEO of the League of American Orchestras, has followed Alsop’s career from its start in New York in the 1980s. ‘She’s got a lot of grit, and a lot of conviction,’ Rosen says. ‘She figured out how to be a musical leader in today’s world.’ ”
Posted August 8, 2016
Photo of Marin Alsop courtesy R. R. Jones
