Marin Alsop Leads the BSO in Concerts Previewing the 2012-2013 Season, 9/13 & 14

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) Music Director Marin Alsop leads the BSO in 2012-2013 Season Preview Concerts on Thursday, September 13 at 8 p.m. at the Music Center at Strathmore and on Friday, September 14 at 8 p.m. at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The concert highlights programs from the 2012-2013 season, such as Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, music from Bernstein's West Side Story, and a performance of Baltimore native Christopher Rouse's Ku-Ka-Ilimoku. Maestra Alsop also serves as the evening's host, providing interesting commentary about each work. Advance tickets are just $10 (and $15 at the door). Please see below for complete program details.

The Grammy Award-winning Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is internationally recognized as having achieved a preeminent place among the world's most important orchestras. Acclaimed for its enduring pursuit of artistic excellence, the BSO has attracted a devoted national and international following while maintaining deep bonds throughout Maryland with innovative education and community outreach initiatives.

The BSO made musical history in September 2007, when Maestra Marin Alsop led her inaugural concerts as the Orchestra's 12th music director, making her the first woman to head a major American orchestra. With her highly praised artistic vision, her dynamic musicianship and her commitment to accessibility in classical music, Maestra Alsop's leadership has ushered in a new era for the BSO and its audiences.

In recent years, Alsop and the BSO have been regularly invited to Carnegie Hall, including Marin Alsop's debut in February 2008, a critically acclaimed appearance later the same year to perform Bernstein's Mass, further performances in November 2010 and again in November 2011 for a performance of Honegger's dramatic oratorio Jeanne d'Arc. The Orchestra under Alsop underwent their first domestic tour in March 2012 to the West Coast, including a 3-day residency at the University of California, Berkeley.

For more than 80 years, the BSO has maintained a vibrant educational presence throughout Maryland, supporting the local community not only through concerts and recordings, but also through its commitment to actively giving back with its education, outreach and mentorship programs. The 2012-2013 season marks the fifth year of OrchKids™, a year-round in-school and after-school music program designed to create social change and nurture promising futures for youth in Baltimore City's neighborhoods. OrchKids™ provides music education, instruments and tutoring to Baltimore's neediest youngsters at no cost. Since its start in 2008, the program has grown from 30 students to nearly 600 student participants throughout four schools in Baltimore City.

Under Music Director Marin Alsop's leadership, the BSO has rapidly added several critically acclaimed albums to its already impressive discography. The BSO and Maestra Alsop partnered with the Naxos label to record a three-disc Dvo?ák cycle of Symphonies 6 through 9, released between 2008 and 2010. Following the success of the BSO's cycle of Dvo?ák recordings, the BSO released Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra and Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, and will release Mahler's Symphony No. 1, "Titan" in 2012.

In addition to the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, where the orchestra has performed for 29 years, the BSO is a founding partner and the resident orchestra at the state-of-the-art Music Center at Strathmore, just outside of Washington, D.C. With the opening of Strathmore in February 2005, the BSO became the nation's only major orchestra with year-round venues in two metropolitan areas.

Hailed as one of the world's leading conductors for her artistic vision and commitment to accessibility in classical music, Marin Alsop made history with her appointment as the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. With her inaugural concerts in September 2007, she became the first woman to head a major American orchestra. She also holds the title of conductor emeritus at the Bournemouth Symphony in the United Kingdom, where she served as the principal conductor from 2002-2008, and is music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California.

In 2005, Ms. Alsop was named a MacArthur Fellow, the first conductor ever to receive this prestigious award. In 2007, she was honored with a European Women of Achievement Award, in 2008 she was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2009 Musical America named her "Conductor of the Year." In November 2010, she was inducted into the Classical Music Hall of Fame. In February 2011, Marin Alsop was named the music director of the Orquestra Sinfônica do estado de São Paulo (OSESP), or the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, effective for the 2012-13 season. Ms. Alsop was named to Guardian's Top 100 Women list in March 2011. In the spring of 2011, Marin Alsop was named an Artist-in-Residence at the Southbank Centre in London, England.

A regular guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, Ms. Alsop appears frequently as a guest conductor with the most distinguished orchestras around the world. In addition to her performance activities, she is also an active recording artist with award-winning cycles of Brahms, Barber and Dvo?ák.

Marin Alsop has led Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in several key outreach initiatives. In 2008, she partnered with the BSO to launch OrchKids™, a music education and life enrichment program for youth in West Baltimore. In 2010, she conducted the first "Rusty Musicians with the BSO" – an event that gave amateur musicians the chance to perform onstage with a professional symphony orchestra and quickly became a popular component of the BSO's efforts to connect with the community. In June 2010, Maestra Alsop conducted the inaugural BSO Academy – an immersive summer music program that gives approximately 100 amateur adult musicians the opportunity to perform alongside a top professional orchestra.

Marin Alsop attended Yale University and received her master's degree from The Juilliard School. In 1989, her conducting career was launched when she won the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize at Tanglewood where she studied with Leonard Bernstein.