EYES SHINING - MARIN ALSOP GUEST CONDUCTS TO A WARM RECEPTION AT THE SF SYMPHONY

Eyes shining and a warm heart was my overall feeling when I left San Francisco's Davies Hall Friday night after hearing renowned conductor Marin Alsop conduct a fabulous program. The New York Times stated that she is not only “a formidable musician and a powerful communicator” but also “a conductor with a vision.” Here's Alsop in her second return to the stage after the concert.

She is an equally fabulous, accomplished, and seasoned conductor with impeccable credentials detailed in an awesome note in the Symphony program. Not only that, she is an approachable, humble, and warm person, and was the first woman conductor of the Baltimore Symphony.

Sadly, but perhaps to be expected in this anti-DEI environment, the Symphony's program note omitted what to me is Alsop's most noteworthy and admirable accomplishment and commitment: that of mentoring and supporting the inclusion of women in the conducting field. An example on her website is her "Taki Alsop Conducting FellowshipT...(whose mission) is to mentor, support, and promote women conductors as they advance in their professional careers...currently a two-year award that primarily includes intensive coaching and mentoring with Marin Alsop and other music industry professionals. The TACF honorarium for Fellows is $20,000 over the two years; other awards are distributed on a merit basis. Since 2003, thirty women conductors have been chosen to participate in the program."

To many other women artists, composers, conductors, and feminist women music aficionadas, she is an icon to be respected and celebrated, and to me she is a musical hero.

Thus, I was quite excited and admittedly a bit nervous for her first visit to guest conduct in San Francisco -- and I pray she will soon be appointed the Music Director of my city's symphony, considered by many to be a major national one. The position is open after Salonen failed in 2024 to renew his five-year contract. It's more than time for a women because after all, arguably we live in the most "woke" city in the US.

Yet in all San Francisco's history, our symphony has never had a female music director. That is gobsmacking. Are we really that stodgy when it comes to music and inclusion?

The best we can say about that shameful fact, is that the SF Symphony is in line with the grand majority: in 2024 of the chief conductors or music directors of those orchestras, 89.9% were men and only 10.1% were women.

In any case, I equate "woke" with being a "humanist-feminist", which is another way I label my politics and philosophy and contextualize my values. We need more of that, not less, including action-oriented letters and lobbying and other community pressure advocating for women and Alsop. (Patricia Geeslin is the Board President and Matthew Spivey is the CEO; you can write both at: SF Symphony, 201 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102.

Alsop is it. (If she will come...)

As my partner, an oboist in his youth, said while we were exiting the building, "The Symphony would be mad not to hire her immediately. She is superb!"

Grace Hunemann, a friend, former long-time piano teacher at the Community Music Center, and former student with me in Noa Kageyama's five-class seminar on the Psych Essentials of Performance, told me about the upcoming concert. (You can view Grace and me on a happy dining-out occasion with our partners.) I was unaware of it since, starting in 2024, I put all my musical eggs in the basket of GROUPMUSE, not the Symphony which seems quite remote and often cold to me. The acoustics are not all that great in Davies to my ears, nor as it turns out, to my piano technician either. Besides I can't sit front row so I don't have the added benefit of seeing facial and body movements of the musicians, which greatly add to my pleasure.

GROUPMUSE however, does not have that problem. It is an initiative by musicians that is by and for local accomplished musicians and the neighborhoods in many cities across the US. They (and volunteers like me) find hosts to sponsor small, informal but top quality and friendly concerts designed to support local musicians in homes, libraries, salons, and cafe settings.

But this was a special occasion at the Symphony to which I really looked forward. I sat next to Grace in the side orchestra toward the back where the sound was better than in the intermediate loge, our normal seats in the 2023 season we attended. I benefited from some of Grace's pithy observations between pieces. She drew my attention to the way Alsop assertively and with detailed focus, timely directed each instrumental section leaving out none, and attended to important nuances in the music such as the dynamics, flow, and interpretation of the composition.

From my perspective, Alsop is an enthusiastic, active, and calmly controlled conductor. The musicians were attentive and seemed to stay right with her direction. From my view Alsop did not miss a note.

It was noteworthy that before beginning the program, Alsop was warmly and enthusiastically welcomed by both the musicians and the audience. Just before beginning to conduct Gabriela Ortiz' "Antropolis" (2018), a female musician seemingly from the strings section, audibly called out "Welcome to San Francisco!", and a goodly number of us in the audience clapped. It was a hospitable start!

The piece provided a rousing Latin lift-off featuring a lot of various drums and horns, starting with an awesome kettle drum solo after which I wanted to jump right up and salsa! In the video above you will note many musicians smiling or dancing around behind the drums or other instruments permitting that possibility. It is a hoot! If you listen you will surely enjoy the vibrant vision of a happy Latin America in Ortiz' composition, punctuated in several parts by the entire orchestra voicing a grito (outcry) on an emphatic beat or two. I loved it!

After that, I could relax my anxiety for Alsop. She was certainly "on"!

We next enjoyed ALsop introducing her Venezuelan friend, composer-pianist Gabriela Montero, pictured here. Montero proceeded to play the piano part in her long and complex Piano Concerto No. 1, Latin. She is a stunning pianist.

Even more impressive was her encore. She asked a member of the audience to sing a few notes of any piece, which piece turned out to be "Unchained Melody". After picking out the basic melody with one finger, Montero proceeded to dive right into improvising some six minutes of melodious and energetic music that sounded like a finished, complete composition. It was miraculous to me since the idea of improvising terrifies me. I shall never again experience such a unique piece of music!

As my partner pointed out, more gobsmacking about Alsop was her memorization of all five pieces featured, including Copland's chill-inducing "Fanfare for the Common Man" heard in part in the above video. This was followed by Joan Tower's equally exhilirating "Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No 1.' In this "Fanfare" Alsop is conducting Tower's No. 6 (not No. 1) with her Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The program ended with Samuel Barber's modern Symphony No. 1, Opus 9 (1926). This is a video of Barber's piece conducted by Alsop with the National Youth Orchestra of the US in August 2024. I was prepared to not like this Barber for some reason, but I loved it!

Earlier in the evening Grace expressed doubt if the San Francisco audience knew much about Alsop. As we left the concert hall she commented that apparently Alsop has a goodly number of favorable, knowledgeable fans in the Bay Area (not to mention the world!) -- and that was evident by the hearty audience applause and multiple standing ovations throughout the concert and at the end.

By now I've promoted Alsop in two letters to Geeslin and Spivey and a third letter is in the making. I hope you will join me. We just cannot miss hiring this national treasure!

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