Word: alsop
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...statement didn't mention Alsop specifically--it didn't have to--but a scathing letter, obtained by the Washington Post, from one of the orchestra's board members did. "The overriding justification for eliminating Alsop is that 90% of the BSO musicians oppose her appointment," the board member wrote. "They say that she either does not hear problems or--because her technical limitations prevent her from fixing them--that she ignores them." The board became deadlocked, musicians vs. management. "The musicians clearly did not have her as a preference," says Decatur H. Miller, a 35-year veteran...
...female harpist. Among the top 75 symphony orchestras in the U.S., there are still only three female conductors. "The last domain of gender within the music business is the position of conductor," says Deborah Borda, president of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association. "Somebody like Marin is a real pioneer." Alsop is philosophical about the problem. "I think it's purely the fact that people are not used to it," she says...
...then the Baltimore Symphony came calling. Alsop was seen as new blood and a new direction: she's only 48, young for a conductor at this level. She's funny and approachable--she has a habit of chatting informally to audiences from the podium--and she has been known to moonlight (on the violin) with a swing band. She can handle the warhorses of the repertoire--she just recorded Brahms' Symphony No. 1 with the London Philharmonic--but she also champions living American composers like Philip Glass. She can even be heard, on occasion, to utter the phrase way cool...
...seemed like a good match. But when it was leaked that Alsop was a front runner, the seven instrumentalists on the search committee issued a statement reading, in part, "Approximately 90 percent of the orchestra musicians believe that ending the search process now, before we are sure the best candidate has been found, would be a disservice to the patrons...
...symphony orchestra is many things, but a democracy is not one of them. The nonmusician board members stuck to their guns, and Alsop's appointment was officially confirmed. The musicians put out a measured, tactful statement expressing both that they were disappointed and that they were willing to work with Alsop. "It's unfortunate that [the conflict] went public--nobody gained by that," says Jane Marvine, head of the BSO Players Committee and an English-horn player. "But as painful as this was for both her and us, I think we each may bring a little bit more...