Marin Alsop Returns To Podium

In her first return to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra podium in the 2006-2007 season, Music Director Designate Marin Alsop will conduct subscription concerts January 11-14, featuring a hallmark of the Alsop repertoire, Stravinsky's riot-prompting The Rite of Spring, and Richard Strauss' An Alpine Symphony.

As a tribute to the ongoing 150th anniversary of the renowned Peabody Institute, 33 student musicians from Peabody will join forces with the Baltimore Symphony to constitute a massive 120-person ensemble for An Alpine Symphony; for The Rite of Spring, a second group of 28 Peabody students will perform with the Orchestra.

The program, performed at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall on Thursday, January 11 and Friday, January 12 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, January 14 at 3:00 p.m., features two of the most dramatic and provocative works in the symphonic repertoire. Please note: This program will be repeated at the Music Center at Strathmore on Saturday, January 13, 2007 at 8:00 p.m.

Commenting on the partnership, Jeffrey Sharkey, Director of The Peabody Institute said, "It is a very exciting opportunity for students to sit and perform next to professional musicians who have already achieved goals shared by many Peabody students. It is a great honor for Peabody to be part of some of Marin Alsop's first concerts as the BSO's music director designate, to work with a conductor of her caliber, and welcome her to this city."

In addition to fortifying the musical ranks required for Strauss' seldom performed An Alpine Symphony, the collaboration with The Peabody Institute provides the students with a rare and unique training experience. Peabody musicians will be fully integrated into the ensemble for both portions of the program with a presence in every section of the orchestra, from first violins to percussion. While musicians from Peabody have partnered and provided substitutes for BSO programs in the past, these concerts mark the first time Peabody instrumentalists have been featured so prominently in a subscription concert.

An Alpine Symphony is a symphonic tone poem of the highest form. Instead of conforming to the traditional four-movement symphonic structure, the demanding work depicts the composer's recollection of a youthful mountain excursion through the Bavarian Alps in a series of 22 aural landscapes exalting nature's grandeur. Utilizing Strauss' consummate skills in exploiting the full range of instrumental colors and timbres, this colossal tone poem reflects a journey up and down the mountain, including the rising and setting of the sun, the climbers' arrival on the summit and an imposing thunderstorm that overtakes the climbers upon their descent. According to BSO program annotator Jan Bedell, An Alpine Symphony "is a musical worship of Nature in all its splendor and terror."

Alpine was composed in Berlin from 1911-1915, during Strauss' time there as a successful opera composer and conductor. "At last I have learned to orchestrate," the composer said after the first performance in 1915, at which Strauss himself conducted the huge orchestra at the Berlin Philharmonic Hall. The epic work calls for nearly 150 players - 20 horns in the horn section alone - in addition to an organ and a wind-and-storm machine.

Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring was a revolutionary statement that upon its premiere in Paris in 1913, incited one of the most notorious riots in classical music's modern history. After composing two challenging but well-received works for ballet, Firebird and Petrushka, Stravinsky shocked audiences at the Théatre des Champs-Elysees with the barbaric dissonances and irregular, visceral rhythms that provide the essence of The Rite of Spring. The music and dancing onstage elicited boos, catcalls and even brawls from the audience, though ultimately, it was more favorably received as an orchestral concert piece just a year later. Today, The Rite of Spring is recognized as one of the landmark works that brought Stravinsky to the forefront of the 20th century's most influential composers. Alsop made her highly successful conducting debut with BSO in May 2002 with a program that included The Rite of Spring.

Marin Alsop, Music Director

Marin Alsop recently made history with her appointment as twelfth music director of the Baltimore Symphony beginning with the 2007-08 season. She will be the first woman to head a major American orchestra, which mirrors her ongoing success in the United Kingdom as principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony since 2002. In summer 2005, she was named a 2005 MacArthur Fellow, the first conductor ever to receive this most prestigious American award. The first artist to win Gramophone's "Artist of the Year" award and the Royal Philharmonic Society's Conductor's Award in the same season (2003), Maestra Alsop recently won the Classical Brit Award for Best Female Artist of 2005.

Ms. Alsop is a regular guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic. She also appears frequently as a guest conductor with many distinguished orchestras worldwide. After a highly successful 12-year tenure as music director of the Colorado Symphony, Ms. Alsop continues her association as conductor laureate; she also continues as music director of the highly acclaimed Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California. Marin Alsop is a native of New York City; she attended Yale University and received her Master's degree from The Juilliard School. In 1989, her conducting career was launched when she a prizewinner at the Leopold Stokowski International Conducting Competition in New York, and in the same year, she was awarded the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she was a pupil of Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa and Gustav Meier.

Peabody Symphony Orchestra

The Peabody Symphony Orchestra is the premiere ensemble of the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University. In the 2006-2007 season, Music Director Hajime Teri Murai will lead the orchestra in performances from the standard orchestral repertoire alongside new works by American composers - many with Peabody connections - such as alumni Michael Hersch and Dominick Argento, as well as Peabody Distinguished Visiting Artists Libby Larsen and Chen Yi.

Hajime Teri Murai, Music Director, Peabody Symphony Orchestra

Hajime Teri Murai was appointed in 1991 as the Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Director of Orchestral Activities and serves as the Music Director of the Peabody Symphony and Concert Orchestras. Mr. Murai has made guest conducting appearances with numerous prestigious orchestras throughout the United States. He served on the faculty of the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, from 1976-1991, and was Music Director and Conductor of the Cincinnati Youth Orchestra from 1979-1991.

Mr. Murai has been awarded eleven ASCAP Awards for the Adventuresome Programming of Contemporary Music, including six awards with the Peabody Symphony and Concert Orchestras. In addition to premiering many new works, Mr. Murai gave the first performance in English of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No.13, "Babi Yar" (translation by Dr. Robert Evans). In 1987, he was a semi-finalist in the Leopold Stokowski Conducting Competition.

Mr. Murai was born in San Francisco and began his conducting studies while attending Lowell High School. He received his BA and MA degrees from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he studied with Ronald Ondrejka. He attended the California Institute of the Arts to study with Gerhard Samuel, and has also worked with Richard Lert. -- www.baltimoresymphony.org