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Marin Alsop back at Tilles with Baltimore Symphony

Marin Alsop, a former conductor of the Long Island Philharmonic, brings the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, shown in rehearsal, to North Fork Hall at Tilles Center. (Photo by Monica Lopossay / September 27, 2007)

BY VERNE GAY | verne.gay@newsday.com

February 7, 2008

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The syncopated charms of Duke Ellington's "Harlem" were about to fill the concert hall, but the woman determined to coax the notes out of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra seemed to barely fill the conductor's podium.

From the back of Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall - seating capacity of 2,400 and a ceiling so high that it becomes lost in the shadows - Marin Alsop seems nearly invisible. Then, the optical illusion snaps.

The tiny distant figure begins to wave her arms. Her body moves rhythmically. She teeters, then sways, on one foot, followed by the other. Her head swivels and turns, dips and rises. She suddenly becomes this animated, vibrant, alive thing - no longer entirely human, but maybe more wizard. The maestra of Hogwarts, perhaps?

To watch Alsop, 51, conduct is to be forcefully reminded of her mentor, Leonard Bernstein. It is as though she is not merely conducting the orchestra but the audience as well.

And this was only a rehearsal.

Big reputations

Star conductors, like star ballplayers, always have big reputations beyond the playing field or the podium. For the onetime conductor of the Long Island Philharmonic who returns to Tilles Center Sunday, here's a sampling:

She has revived a distinguished but somewhat fusty and financially diminished orchestra in a troubled city better known lately for "The Wire" than for its musical tradition. She's also a gifted communicator who has demystified classical music for the legions of the mystified wherever she conducts.

And this: She is the first female music director of a major American orchestra. There have been many first-rate women conductors over the decades (remember Sarah Caldwell at the Met?), while JoAnn Falletta of the Buffalo Philharmonic predates Alsop at BSO. But Buffalo's is a fraction of Baltimore's $27-million budget, therefore not qualifying as "major."

Here's another part of this growing reputation. Two and a half years ago, her appointment in Baltimore was met with wholesale revolt by members of the orchestra. They demanded that the search for a successor to Yuri Temirkanov continue. Thunderstruck, Alsop ignored the advice of friends to walk away and instead demanded 10 minutes of the orchestra's time. She told the players she would bring them into the 21st century, embrace new technologies and get a recording contract, while building audiences and respect.

After those 10 minutes, the appointment was virtually sealed. Since then, she's done all that was promised - and then some.

Alsop has sad, hazel-gray eyes that suggest a soulful inner core. That's another illusion. By most accounts, she's a tough, demanding boss who melds orchestras to her specific artistic vision. That's a part of her legend, too.

Lillian Barbash, founding director of the Islip Arts Council and one of the founding board members of the Long Island Philharmonic who pushed for Alsop's appointment in 1989, recalls, "She was very, very confident and I know this is going to sound kind of silly, but on her way out to the interview from New York, she had a flat in the car she was driving, and got out and fixed it by herself. I said, there's a gal who's gonna be able to do all sorts of things."

"You don't go into this business for a popularity contest," says Alsop, speaking from her windowless Baltimore office adjoining the Meyerhoff stage. "I don't think it's about being liked. It can't be about being liked. It's about being an artist and being committed to and doing justice to the music."

The curriculum vitae of Marin Alsop is packed, but there is indeed one common theme - a commitment to music almost from birth. Born in Manhattan to professional musicians, Alsop - at age 9 - watched Bernstein lead the New York Philharmonic, and instantly saw her future. There were many setbacks along the way, but Alsop brushed them aside. In 1989, she won the Leopold Stokowski International Conducting Competition and the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood - the Nobel of the U.S. conducting world - became allied with Bernstein, and her rocket took off. Conducting appointments came (Cabrillo, Calif.; Eugene, Ore.; Colorado; Long Island) and many guest roles. She also became principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony in 2003; she is now a big star in the United Kingdom.

A family squabble

The pothole was Baltimore. Alsop now blames the controversy on a feud between players and orchestra bosses. Unwittingly, she had stepped into the middle of a vicious family squabble.

Jane Marvine, BSO English horn player and chairwoman of the players' committee, agrees, saying prior management "botched the process." She adds, "Things are going great now."

"It's easy to say now, but it was traumatic at the time," Alsop says. "But it also kind of cut to the essence - it was so brutal and so basic ... that we didn't have to play make-believe at all. There's often a honeymoon period that lasts a couple years, then disenchantment [sets in]. We didn't have any of this because everyone was totally -- off in a way that was liberating."

Reviews in Baltimore have been solid. "So far, so good," says Baltimore Sun music critic Tim Smith, who adds that Alsop has "very good rapport with the public." (Like many of her contemporaries, she often addresses the audience from the podium.) But "she is a serious musician - there's nothing fake about it - and she is the 21st century candidate for this job," Smith says "You've got to do something to shake this [institution] up."