The contract has not been finalized, but conductor Marin Alsop is already doing interviews and discussing her pending appointment as music director of the Baltimore Symphony.
“I’m thrilled,” the former music director of the Colorado Symphony said Friday by cell phone from Martha’s Vineyard, where she is vacationing. “It’s a wonderful orchestra. I’ve loved them since the first day I conducted there (in May 2002).”
Alsop expected a contract to be signed over the weekend, and she said that a press conference would probably be held Tuesday afternoon to formally announce her new post.
Laura Johnson, the Baltimore Symphony’s vice president of public relations and community affairs, confirmed that the orchestra’s board is set to meet Tuesday morning, but she declined to give any other details about the status of the contract.
“We’re not in a position to share more than that,” she said.
Although not one of the traditional Big 5 orchestras in the United States, a group which includes the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra, the 89-year-old Baltimore Symphony is one of the country’s oldest and most respected orchestras.
The symphony, which has an annual budget of $30.1 million, gained international prominence under David Zinman, music director in 1985-1998. Under his leadership, the orchestra recorded extensively and traveled to Europe and Asia.
The symphony’s current music director, Yuri Temirkanov, who also serves as music director and chief conductor of Russia’s St. Petersburg Philharmonic, took over his duties in January 2000 and is scheduled to step down in June 2006.
Alsop, who has appeared as a guest conductor with the Baltimore Symphony eight times, said she is especially excited about the prospect of leading the orchestra in its two main venues. It performs in the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore and a $100 million center that opened in February in North Bethesda, Md., as a joint project with Strathmore, a widely known arts presenter.
Alsop stepped down earlier this year after 12 years as music director and music director laureate of the Colorado Symphony. She retains the title of conductor laureate and will still regularly conduct in Denver but has no administrative duties.
“The timing is good,” she said. “I’m feeling ready to embark on the next journey.”
Already in her career journey, she has led many of the world’s great orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic and Berlin Symphony. She has made more than 30 recordings, including the recent first volume in a set of Brahms symphonies with the London Philharmonic.
Gramophone magazine named her its 2003 artist of the year and placed her on its cover – two of classical music’s most prestigious honors. That same year, she took over as principal director of the Bournemouth Symphony, a prominent second-tier British orchestra that tours widely.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-820-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
