Having shakily arisen out of the ashes of the bankrupt Denver Symphony, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra was barely 3 years old when it hired its first artistic leader in 1993.
The fragile orchestra chose a promising young conductor named Marin Alsop, waiting a year to give her the formal title of music director because of bitter memories of previous leadership strife.
Looking back a dozen years later, as Alsop leads her final concerts as music director laureate, it turned out to be a near-perfect match. At 48, she has matured into a top conductor, and the Colorado Symphony has become one of this country’s most respected orchestras.
Alsop places it right behind the 10 top American orchestras, such as ones in New York, Baltimore and San Francisco, and on a par with ensembles such as the Dallas Symphony. Similar opinions are held by others in the field.
Henry Moran, the chairman and chief executive of the American Symphony Orchestra League, was impressed when he heard Alsop lead an interpretation of Mahler’s tricky Symphony No. 7 in March 2004.
“I was really very taken with the performance,” he said. “And my sense was that this was a major-league performance by an orchestra of importance, and a performance that you could have put down in any city anywhere and played with pride.”
Such success didn’t happen overnight. Conductor and orchestra grew together, each building on the other’s achievements.
When Alsop arrived, she discovered an enthusiastic group of musicians who were “somewhat unfocused” in their playing and discipline. She set out to address those weaknesses and instill a sense of style and color.
As she improved and gained more attention in Denver and beyond, she became a more commanding presence on the podium, said John Baril, Central City Opera’s resident conductor.
“When you get a following like that, it just strengthens your ego a little bit, and I think it helps the music-making, because you’re more relaxed,” he said. “You’re not trying to prove yourself all time. You’re just trying to enjoy it.”
Many of the qualities that won Alsop the position have served her well since: a winning personality, facile sense of humor and extraordinary ability to communicate with both music aficionados and novices.
Perhaps most important has been her intensity and focus of the podium, something assistant principal violist Catherine Beeson saw in 1999 during one of her first performances with the orchestra.
Sitting behind the podium, Beeson got a close look as Alsop handled John Corigliano’s demanding Clarinet Concerto with focus and control, never looking at the score she had obviously memorized.
“Some of Marin’s greatest moments can be boiled down to that kind of thing,” Beeson said. “She just can really possess the situation.”
Besides improving the orchestra’s playing and raising the level of musicians, Alsop has significantly boosted the orchestra’s profile through her uncommon emphasis on modern and contemporary music.
Under her leadership, the symphony has received six awards for adventuresome programming from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
At the same time, she has widened the orchestra’s visibility with more than a half dozen recordings. It wasn’t always easy.
“All the previous managements have not seen the value in doing recordings, and it has been a struggle – every single CD was difficult,” she said.
She also had to overcome five management changes during her tenure and the constant challenge of building consensus in the orchestra’s unusually collaborative artistic structure.
“I think we’ve done pretty well in spite of that,” she said. “I think the orchestra has a national and international profile. I just wish it could have been bigger.”
As Jeffrey Kahane prepares to take over as music director and Alsop shifts to a smaller role as conductor laureate, her legacy will live on as the symphony builds on her accomplishments.
“She’s really been the person to bring our orchestra to this level,” said concertmaster YuMi Hwang-Williams. “I think we will always have a special place for her in this community and in the orchestra.
“It’s wonderful to now move on to a new music director, Jeffrey Kahane, who sees us from this vantage point – sort of all grown up.”
