“Marin Alsop has been named music director of the annual National Orchestral Institute and Festival at the University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center,” writes Susan Elliott in Tuesday’s (10/6) Musical America (subscription required). “She’s its first ever music director, but has been active over the course of its 34 years, serving as one of several conductors every year from 1993-2000. Historically, NOI+F has offered intensive study for orchestral musicians on the threshold of professional careers. Alumni have held positions in virtually every major U.S. orchestra, including the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, and the Boston Symphony. In June of 2021, Alsop will launch the NOI+F’s first conducting academy, training six emerging maestros, as well as conduct a number of concerts by the NOI+F Philharmonic. Her repertoire next summer will include works by Jessie Montgomery; Gabriela Lena Frank, who leads the Institute’s composer training program; Brian Raphael Nabors, also a faculty member; and Nathan Lincoln-DeCusatis. Her programmatic emphasis in future will continue to be on women and Black composers, contemporary and historic. The 2021 Institute and Festival are to be the subject of a documentary, recorded by Naxos.”
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