| Conductor and MacArthur Fellowship winner Marin Alsop (Photo courtesy of Kym Thomson) |
Conductor Marin Alsop was destined to be a musician.
"I have no memory without music," she said.
Both her parents were musicians – her father concertmaster of the New York City Ballet and her mother
cellist with the orchestra.
Her parents "always assumed I would be a musician," she said. "It doesn’t matter what you
dabble with ultimately you have to be a musician."
"Music for me was synonymous with family and that continues to be the case," she said in a
recent telephone interview. Alsop considers the orchestras she conducts "the largest families to
can get."
That family is farflung – she is music director of the Baltimore Symphony, the chief conductor of the Sao
Paulo Symphony Orchestra in Brazil and conductor emeritus of the Bournemouth Symphony in England.
Nurturing the musical family will be the focus when Alsop, the first conductor ever to win a MacArthur
Fellowship – informally known as a genius grant, visits Bowling Green State University Monday. As the
Dorothy E. and DuWayne Hansen visiting artist, she will conduct an open rehearsal with the Bowling Green
Philharmonia at 1:30 p.m. and then speak at 7 p.m., both free events in Kobacker Hall on campus.
Music is important, Alsop said, for the same reason all arts are important. It creates "a connection
to the human spirit, the shared human emotional spirit."
For listeners music poses a particular challenge. The work cannot be taken in at once, rather it unfolds
in real time demanding the listener tracks the sounds. "You never hear the whole thing at once. . .
. It’s a very sophisticated experience listening to music."
Older, traditional listeners and young listeners demand different experiences.
The classical music business "is a very conservative industry," Alsop said.
"The typical subscription audience comes to contemporary music with some trepidation and rightfully
so because so much of the contemporary music that they experienced in the 1970s and ’80s was
extraordinarily inaccessible and difficult."
Still she believes listeners can be brought into the music. As director of the Cabrillo Festival in
California dedicated to contemporary music people pack the concerts.
"They love it because it’s all about getting deep into the music, understanding the creative
process, understanding the motivation of these composers."
Young listeners have less resistance to new music. The music of composers such a BGSU graduate Jennifer
Higdon and Christopher Rouse "reflects the world we live in."
"For me contemporary music is a great entry point for today’s society," she said.
New sounds can help "build a bridge back" to the classical symphonies of Beethoven and others.
Those classical works continue to be relevant because they take us back to earlier times and ways of
living. "Music is the ultimate time machine."
Alsop has been recognized both for her efforts and success in reaching out to listeners. She regularly
appears on BBC and NPR and has even spoken to the world’s movers and shakers at the 2006 World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Trained at Yale and the Juilliard School as a violinist, Alsop said she honed her skills at communicating
with audiences during the 20 years from 1981 to 2001 she led the swing band Swing Fever. Then she had to
contend with audiences in clubs distracted by food and "a few too many drinks."
"That gave me a comfort level to speak extemporaneously," she said.
Alsop came to swing music through her father, who also had a second career playing in the reed section of
the Fred Waring band.
The only violin she plays now is with her 8-year-old son. "I think it’s tough to have musicians as
parents," she said. Musicians tend to "so aware of imperfections, so critical. I just want him
have fun."
While young musicians must acquire "strong fundamentals," Alsop said. "It’s equally
important to have a very positive experience."
"The measuring approach we’ve ended up taking isn’t the most effective teaching methodology. It
tends to wring out the enjoyment."
She’s a supporter of the El Sistemo, an approach to teaching classical music developed in Venezuela
"which is not based on an attention to minute detail at all but based on a broad experience, and we
see that kids thrive on that."
Alsop started a program based on those principles in Baltimore. The program, she said, is doing well.
"If you looked at everybody’s bow arm you wouldn’t be that thrilled, but that’s not what it’s all
about."
As for her son, he’s free to pursue whatever he desires, though his mother wouldn’t mind of he was
president.
What she wants him to understand is "the world is a very big place… and the options are
limitless."
