Ms. Maestro: Is Ravinia’s Marin Alsop in Line to Succeed Muti at the CSO?

Marin Alsop/Photo: Nancy Horowitz

A seismic shift has occurred at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. After thirteen seasons, Riccardo Muti took his last bow as music director in late June. True, he’ll open the new season in the fall for three programs. But aside from that, 2023-24 will be a Muti-less season in Chicago.

Speculation had run high as to when—or even if—Muti would step down at the end of the 2022-23 season. A 2019 strike knocked out seven weeks of programs. Another eighteen months of performances fell away during the pandemic in 2020-21. Muti was asked to extend his contract as music director for an extra year, through the 2022-23 season, but that restored only a portion of the concerts that had been lost. That’s history now. As is the Muti era.

July sees the CSO return to its summer home of the Ravinia Festival where Marin Alsop begins her third year as chief conductor; her fifth, if you count the 2018 and 2019 Bernstein centennial festivals that she curated. You won’t, however, find Alsop on the 2023-24 downtown CSO season roster. Could that foreshadow a more substantial announcement about Alsop’s future with the CSO for the 2024-25 season?

It could be argued that the CSO would miss an extraordinary opportunity if they didn’t—or already haven’t—asked Alsop to be their next music director. Aside from the fact that this would be only the third time that a major American orchestra would have a woman music director—Alsop’s 2007-2021 stint with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was the first—the CSO has never had an American music director in its 123-year history, let alone a female music director. And Chicago being a “Big Five” Orchestra—along with New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Cleveland—and largely considered to be the best orchestra in America as well as among the top three orchestras in the world—along with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic—a major glass ceiling would be broken.

“When you put it like that,” says Alsop, “that’s at least two strikes: American and female. I’m sure there are many other strikes. All I can say is it’s probably unlikely in the next two decades, in my thinking. But I have this great opportunity at Ravinia with the orchestra. It’s a condensed, intense relationship, you know? We see each other for this given few weeks every year. For me, it’s wonderful and we’ve done some great programs. I can also be quite—experimental isn’t quite the right word—but it’s a better environment for trying to push the envelope in offering things to new audiences and doing some repertoire that’s a little bit outside the box and not always so mainstream. And doing projects that have different components whether it’s media or staging or audience involvement, that kind of thing. So, I feel like I already have this great relationship and opportunity. And I have to say, I’m super happy with that. If they decide to go that direction, I’d also be thrilled. But I don’t think that’s something that we’ll see.”

Even factoring in that Alsop and CSO Association president Jeff Alexander were regularly meeting at Ravinia during Alsop’s first Bernstein centennial season there in 2018? And that it wasn’t long after that Alsop announced she was stepping down as music director in Baltimore? And that the CSO has a long history of having a primary candidate in place years in advance? When former music director Daniel Barenboim returned to Chicago in 2018 after a twelve-year absence, for instance, he admitted to me in a broadcast interview that he had been asked to be music director in 1986 even though the appointment would not begin until 1991.

Conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in May 2019/Photo: Todd Rosenberg

As for the organization thinking that way about Alsop, she says if that is happening, “I don’t know it. I do love the orchestra and am very happy to have a long-term relationship with them. I love working with Jeff Alexander and that team. And [Ravinia CEO and president] Jeff Haydon is fantastic. The Ravinia team is really a delight to work with, I have to say.”

“As you know,” weighs in Jeff Alexander, “we are in a search for a new music director. We have a wonderful search committee in place constituted by members of the orchestra, members of the board and members of the staff. We’re having very good discussions. And we have not yet concluded the search, so nothing is off the table. We’re reviewing everyone who has conducted the CSO historically and more recently and currently. We’re looking at everybody. That’s really all I can say. At some point, we will come to a conclusion and be able to make an announcement. We’re not there yet.”

As for Alsop not appearing on the 2023-24 downtown CSO roster, “I wouldn’t read anything into that absence,” says Alexander. “Marin has had some wonderfully successful weeks downtown including a week this past January which was really marvelous. Very special. She’s also had some really wonderful weeks at Ravinia in the last few summers. I recall a Mendelssohn symphony that was beautifully done, as was a Beethoven 7. Halfway to the other side of the spectrum, the Bernstein ‘Mass’ was brilliant. Her concerts are really excellent. I look forward to each of them. I think it’s clear that Marin has become a regular on the podium at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and I’m very pleased about that. I’m sure that will continue in the future. It just so happens that it often comes down to scheduling. The weeks that we have open and are offered whether to Marin or somebody else may be taken elsewhere. Thankfully, Marin is very busy so it was just a matter of timing and of scheduling. I’m sure we’ll see her again downtown in future seasons. We enjoy our relationship with her and I look forward to it continuing.”

Does Alexander think Alsop would make a good music director? “In general, yes. She was very successful in Baltimore.”

Would becoming music director of the CSO preclude Alsop from continuing her role as Ravinia chief conductor? “I don’t think so,” says Alexander. “That would be up to Ravinia. Or up to us to discuss. But I think that in general, Marin has all the skills required to be an excellent music director at whatever orchestra she is music director. She knows how to program really well. She is really wonderful at communications and at embracing donors and sponsors. Her community work is fantastic. She has all the attributes of a successful music director, no doubt about it.

Marin Alsop/Photo: Grant Leighton

“There are more and more women conducting now in general but Marin was, without question, a pioneer. I first worked with Marin over thirty years ago when I was at the Cincinnati Symphony where she came pretty regularly as a guest conductor. It’s interesting that thirty years later—finally—more and more women are getting opportunities. For twenty-five of the thirty years that intervened, there still wasn’t that much opportunity. But in the last five to ten years, there’s been much more opportunity. As you’ve noticed, I’m sure, we certainly have more women guest conductors in Chicago than we had before. I think every orchestra in the country is doing that, every orchestra in the world. We’re seeing really wonderfully talented women conductors emerge now. That’s why I think that within the next few years, a woman music director will break that glass ceiling of the Big Five.”

Could the CSO be the trailblazer? Does Alexander see a priority in the next CSO music director being a woman?

“I can tell you that the committee agreed very quickly at our first meeting that we would be completely open to a music director of any race, any sex, any religion, of course, any nationality, any age. We were not going to start the search—and we are not holding a search—with any specific description of a human being in mind other than the fact that they have to be a great conductor. And a great communicator. We didn’t rule out—and we still haven’t ruled out—a woman conductor. Nor did we decide it must be a woman conductor.”

What about the possibility of a woman principal guest conductor at the CSO?

“That would be interesting,” admits Alexander. “Not too many orchestras have principal guest conductors these days. Some do. We don’t reject the concept of doing that. But we have to, of course, first see who the music director is going to be and how he or she feels about that so there can be a good balance. It’s not off the table, but it’s also not formally part of our plans right now.”

How does Ravinia’s Jeffrey P. Haydon feel about the prospect of Alsop having a larger role at the CSO?

“It would be a great opportunity,” says Haydon. “Our audience loves Marin and she certainly has a huge amount of respect and admiration in Chicago. She attracted a whole different audience to the Chicago Symphony [downtown] when she was there than I would normally see. Certainly, there is no Top Five Orchestra that has appointed a female conductor yet. I would love to see Marin in Chicago more.”

Conducting
at Ravinia/Courtesy of Ravinia Festival

Does Haydon see the possibility of Alsop becoming CSO music director as precluding her keeping the role of chief conductor at Ravinia? “We would welcome Marin to be at Ravinia as much as she wanted as well if she also were to have an additional role. My predecessor Welz Kauffman was brilliant in bringing Marin to Ravinia back in 2002. It took a while to get her back here. She’s so admired in the industry with her amazing life story and her talent. There’s no pretense about her. You can sit down and have a candid conversation. She is so smart but also very approachable. Not all conductors are as approachable and talented and revered. That’s a very rare trifecta. With Marin you get the whole package of an amazing person and an amazing conductor. And a visionary.”

“The time is now,” assesses Kauffman, currently living in Arizona but a frequent return visitor to the area since stepping down as two-decade Ravinia president and CEO in 2020. “Marin is gifted in so many different ways. If there was going to be a time in the times that we’re living in for her to become a music director of a major orchestra, now is that time. All the stars are aligning from the [former CSO Board Chair and Search Committee Chair] Helen Zell piece, to the ‘Tár’ movie piece, to COVID, to her deepening relationship with Ravinia.

“Marin is an incredibly serious musician, a very detail-oriented one. I think she would do something wonderful for the city and frankly, for the orchestra business in America. I think that going with the CSO to Carnegie Hall where she is a big star—she brought her São Paulo Orchestra there in the fall, it was a huge success—would be great. She is ready, That sounds patronizing, but you know what I mean: the time is right. The city is ready. She’s made her impact on the orchestra at Ravinia and downtown. She did a PBS ‘Great Performances’ of Bernstein’s ‘Mass’ with the CSO. She’s got the right public relations people and has had for a while. [The same team also now does national publicity for the CSO.] They do a great job. And they’re not spinning, they’re telling the real story. She’s loving Vienna [where Alsop became the first female chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2019; their latest recording together was just released on Chicago-based Cedille Records]. She’s a star in London [where Alsop was named principal guest conductor at the Philharmonia Orchestra in May and where she will close out the Proms for a third time September 9]. She’s a New Yorker. She’s had a jazz orchestra. One of the things I love about Marin is that what you see is what you get. She doesn’t play with the idea of mystique.

“I brought Marin to Ravinia in 2002 and it was always good. That’s how it all started. She had never been with the Chicago Symphony before. She had never been to Ravinia before.”

It is worth noting that six out of the CSO’s ten music directors first appeared with the orchestra at Ravinia, including Sir Georg Solti and Riccardo Muti.

“I had also brought Marin to the New York Philharmonic,” Kauffman says. “It was part of the Copland centennial festival at the New York Phil. That was a huge moment. That was a bunch of different conductors, all Americans, and [then-music director Kurt] Masur. Masur chose the Copland that he wanted to do and then Marin and Andrew Litton and a bunch of others came in and did pick up the shreds, but that was basically what it was because it was a three-week festival of everything that Copland wrote for orchestra. That was a big moment for her. She’ll never forgive me because it was some tough stuff, the offbeat stuff. It wasn’t ‘Appalachian Spring’ or ‘Rodeo.’ That was a different time and I got pushback from everybody. But Masur was totally happy to have her come. We thought it was the right way for Marin to start in New York, quite frankly. Not at a Parks concert, which was the only kind of audition place the New York Philharmonic had, but it was never very satisfying because you were moving to all the boroughs from place to place. It was tough. Not unimportant, but not like starting at the Hollywood Bowl or Wolf Trap or Ravinia. She did the Shostakovich First Violin Concerto when she first came to Ravinia and had Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg as her soloist. Her second season she did the Corigliano First Symphony and excerpts from ‘Nixon in China.’ A lot of really tough stuff, good stuff. [Ravinia’s then-music director Christoph] Eschenbach was completely into it, totally into it.

Marin Alsop and Leonard Bernstein, 1990/Courtesy of LSO archive

“The Bernstein connection is not unimportant. Not only that Marin was his last protégé, but because Lenny had said women shouldn’t be conductors and then changed his mind. And who changed his mind? Marin Alsop. It’s why I asked her to do our Bernstein Festival. I hadn’t been able to get her back to Ravinia because she wanted to go downtown with the CSO and that wasn’t yet working out. That’s why there was a long gap. She conducted four different summers from 2002 until 2005 and then the spigot ran dry. I understood. No anger. I get it. She did end up conducting the CSO downtown and eventually it did work out for her to come back to Ravinia in 2017, 2018 and 2019, which was great. And she would have been there for my last season, which we lost to the pandemic.”

“When Welz signed Marin originally,” says Haydon, “he knew that he was wrapping up his tenure so he didn’t want to lock the next person into a ten-year contract or anything. When I was selected to come, Welz and I had a conversation about this. I’ve known Welz for a long time. ‘I’m thrilled you signed Marin.’ We had never actually worked together, but our careers had been very parallel. She was the music director of the Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz which is a contemporary orchestra music festival. I was the music director of the Ojai Music Festival near Santa Barbara which is a contemporary all-in festival. And then I did a small stint at the Baltimore Symphony before Marin came there. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with her. I had admired what she had accomplished in Baltimore despite so many ridiculous challenges that she had to face.

“I remember the first conversation I had with Marin when we realized that we had a similar view of music, of respecting the past but also really engaging the present. Of trying to find ways to include and engage more types of performers and composers and audience members to listen to this broad thing we call classical music. And we both had this great experience of working with festivals and love the energy that an intense, short festival environment can bring as well. I told her, ‘You’ve accomplished a lot, you’ve had to work really hard for what you’ve accomplished. I want Ravinia to be the place that says “yes” and makes it easy to enact a vision.’”

“I have to say,” says Alsop, “that through the establishment of the Breaking Barriers festival—now in its second season at Ravinia—I feel that is really a great avenue to showcase underrepresented artists whether it’s conductors or composers or soloists or orchestral musicians. I think that’s going to be a wonderful platform and Ravinia is incredibly supportive on that front.”

Marin and Taki Concordia Fellow Karina Canellakis

“When I first started working with Marin,” says Haydon, “I learned more about her work with the Taki Alsop fellows and really supporting women conductors of all generations, not just young conductors—which I love—at different spots in their career. And it also coincided with the 2021 centennial celebration of [CSO Chorus founder] Margaret Hillis’ birth and the Hillis biography that was coming out by Cheryl Frazes Hill. Cheryl introduced herself to me and told me about her book. My thought was, ‘Wow. We really should celebrate Margaret and her accomplishments.’ You can’t help but draw parallels to the accomplishments Marin Alsop has had. And it turned out, it was also the twentieth anniversary of the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship. So I said, ‘This is perfect. Let’s really amplify this.’ It was the first time all of Marin’s alumni came together. She had fifteen out of twenty come for the first time together. The community and fellowship they had was just incredible.

“This year we’re continuing it. The Taki Alsop Fellows are coming again this summer and they’re going to have a parallel conference taking place that will interact with public activities that we have as well. And we’re featuring, more prominently, women composers both as part of this mini-festival but also throughout the entire summer in classical, pop and jazz.

“We are featuring some of Marin’s conducting fellows on the podium as part of the season. We have Chicagoan Mei-Ann Chen who leads the Chicago Sinfonietta. She has her own night with the CSO July 28. She was one of the first conducting fellows. That Friday night of Breaking Barriers on July 21 includes Valentina Peleggi, a conducting fellow as well, with pianist-composer Gabriela Montero playing her own ‘Latin’ Piano Concerto. We’ll also be featuring women conductors and composers outside of Marin’s program because it’s really important to us to have this be a normal part of our approach in programming, not just when the spotlight is on it.

Working with high school students at Ravinia/Photo: Courtesy of Ravinia Festival

“Marin has also fully embraced all of our music education and outreach activities particularly with our El Sistema Orchestra. She brought one of her students, one of her protégés, Jonathan Rush, her first year when I was here to introduce him to the high schoolers we were working with. He’s a rock star for them. He has been coming back and he will now be featured with the Chicago Symphony coming up at Ravinia as well.

“We’re trying to look at music holistically as a way to inspire the world. You’ll see that manifested in a number of ways. You’re going to continue to see that through incredible orchestra concerts with a wide range of repertoire and soloists. You’re going to also see it in Marin’s commitment—our shared commitment—in building the next generation of both audience members and musicians. A great example of that is this summer where through her vision we’re convening what we’re calling a National Seminario again, modeled after the El Sistema program. We have three nuclei here in Chicago: Lawndale, Austin and Waukegan, and within all that we have about 450 students that we’re providing free orchestra, lessons and support. We’re able to raise money to invite 150 high school students from throughout the country and even Canada to come for three days to work with Marin, to work with Jonathan Rush and to play side-by-side with the Chicago Philharmonic. To be able to meet each other, to work musically together and to be inspired at Ravinia together and perform together on the Pavilion stage. That’s another example of where not a lot of conductors would be willing to take extra time out of their busy schedules to work with high school students. But Marin is very passionate about that and we’re excited to work with her on it.”

Alsop’s 2023 Ravinia season with the Chicago Symphony—the orchestra’s eighty-seventh Ravinia summer residency—opens on July 14 with “Turn Up the Joy: Beethoven 9 Expanded.” “It’s a reimagining in a way,” Alsop explains. “My goal was never to affect Beethoven’s music but to look at the themes that were so important to him. You know, during COVID, I thought a lot about this because all of my Beethoven performances were canceled. Beethoven has always been a hero of mine for his personal strength and his willingness to stand up for what he believed in. I realized during the pandemic that he was the perfect composer to have an anniversary year—250—in the year of COVID because he struggled so much with isolation due to his hearing loss. He became more of a hero for me in battling that kind of lack of human interaction. You know, he was dying for connection, that’s what he longed for.

“The themes of the Schiller text align with Beethoven’s philosophy. Of course, for us today in the twenty-first century, a text that talks about individuality and references joy and freedom and things like that, it’s not very groundbreaking. But at the time it was written in the late 1700s, it was a hugely controversial and groundbreaking philosophical text. I wanted to look at how we could bring the text into the twenty-first century while keeping the themes that were so important to Beethoven of unity, of humanity, of tolerance, of joy. How could we do that? So I partnered with Carnegie Hall and we had nine new texts commissioned, one of which we’ll do at Ravinia. The one we’re doing was written by Tracy K. Smith, former U.S. Poet Laureate. And it’s beautiful, a beautiful text. But the fundamental philosophical themes, I think, are consistent with Beethoven’s original intention through using the Schiller text.

“And then I also wanted to give the listener a sense of the journey of the piece, to draw that line from that opening interval all the way to the final chorus in the ‘Ode to Joy’ is an important journey to take, especially today. I tried to think about how I could achieve that. I spoke with a composer, Reena Esmail, out of Los Angeles about writing an a cappella choral piece, sort of an introduction to the symphony. So, that’s what we’re going to start with. It’s called ‘See Me.’ She uses a Sanskrit text and words that refer to joy, which is a bigger concept in Sanskrit. And then the words of ‘See me’ come through which then segues into the opening interval. What I am trying to do is enable people to understand that Beethoven chose this opening interval because it’s about possibility. The outcome is not prescribed. So, we go through the first movement. And then to get us from the first to the second movement, to me, the rhythmic connection is so strong. I wanted to bring that out. So we’re going to have a segue, a little bridge by a local African drumming group. Everything will go consecutively. Then between the second and third movements, the third movement the way it starts so chromatically, it always reminds me of American jazz. So, that’s going to be the transitional music from the Scherzo to the third movement. There are new musical elements, but they don’t disrupt the original music of Beethoven.”

What about those who might ask why Beethoven can’t be left alone and be allowed to speak for himself? Isn’t Beethoven good enough as he is?

“In many ways, all orchestras are cover bands,” Haydon says. “Everybody gets an opportunity to put an interpretation on a piece. You want to respect masterpieces. But as we see in the pop world and other worlds where people will build on other people’s masterpieces, it doesn’t replace it. It doesn’t make it better or worse. But it gives it a contemporary contexture that may evoke something new and fresh.”

Another highlight of Alsop’s CSO Ravinia residency is the Mahler Fifth Symphony on July 19. Is it a coincidence that the piece, having been the centerpiece of the 2022 film “Tár,” which features a fictional woman conductor played by Cate Blanchett with key biographical details that are right out of Alsop’s own life story, is being conducted by Alsop herself? Is life imitating art imitating life?

Alsop cries out, “No!” while laughing, as if to say, “You’re not really going there, are you?” Alsop’s criticism of “Tár” for having its lead character be an abuser led to her infamous quote to the Sunday Times of London last January when she said of the film, “I was offended as a woman, I was offended as a conductor, I was offended as a lesbian.”

“Listen,” says Alsop. “It’s all in your perception, right?” If memory serves, wasn’t the Mahler Fifth one of the first pieces—if not the very first piece—that Alsop did in Baltimore? “Correct. Draw your own conclusion.”

Marin Alsop leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiere of Julia Wolfe’s “Her Story” in January 2023/Photo: Todd Rosenberg

Of course, there are those who will be cynical because of the remarkable timing of the Alsop CSO performance. “It was chosen well before all that came out,” says Haydon. “Mahler 5 is my favorite piece. We’re trying to go through and perform at least one of Mahler’s major works every year. Given the CSO’s programming and our programming, that’s actually what made the most sense. And then all this came up. In any case, we’re going to hear a real fantastic Mahler 5.”

It is curious, however, to precede the Mahler Fifth with songs of his wife, Alma Mahler. “Definitely, right?” agrees Alsop. “There’s the twist. And I think that’s the goal, to make these connections for people that maybe haven’t in the past been made. And to perform them with Sasha Cooke, what a singer. We just talked yesterday to finalize. We’re going to do four songs by Alma. Beautiful.”

Has a few months time since the release of “Tár” given Alsop some perspective to see any value in the long run to a film that introduces a wider public to the concept of a woman conductor?

“I have no idea,” Alsop admits. “I think we’ll have to let time tell, don’t you think? It’s hard to know.” The plot was convoluted for this viewer. “Yeah. And it’s so long, huh? God. Oh my goodness. It’s over.” (A documentary film about Alsop’s remarkable true-life story and epic journey of breaking glass ceilings in the male-dominated world of conducting, called “The Conductor,” was released in 2021.)

Aside from herself, can Alsop think of other women conductors that she might say to the powers that be, “Hey, this would be an attractive candidate for that CSO position?”

“Oh, there’s so many wonderful women conductors!” Alsop says without hesitation. “Thank heavens we’re seeing more of them. Through Ravinia and the Breaking Barriers festival, I’m able to bring a lot of the women from the fellowship I started twenty years ago to Ravinia and introduce them to the CSO. So many of my colleagues are just outstanding conductors and outstanding human beings. I think they’re probably spoiled for choice.”

And yet as Alsop herself speculated, she felt that was unlikely to happen for at least two decades. If so, what can be done to help change that?

“There has to be a different archetypal image of ‘The Maestro.’ It needs to be updated and expanded, especially in the United States. It needs to include more Americans. There’s clearly a hesitancy about having Americans in that role. I think it does harken back to a time when European influence was all-pervasive and clearly the dominating influence. Once one of the big top institutions makes this step, I hope the doors will open.

“Of course, when I became music director of Baltimore, I thought, ‘Okay, now there’s going to be a lot more women.’ But it took another sixteen years for the second woman—not an American—Nathalie Stutzmann, to be appointed in Atlanta. That’s a slow process. She just started there. My appointment was announced in 2005 and here we are in 2023. It took a long time. The wheels of our progress in the classical music business grind very slowly.”

Marin Alsop’s 2023 season as chief conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia opens July 14; Ravinia Festival, 200 Ravinia Park Road, Highland Park, ravinia.org.