Marin Alsop Conductor Prize

Marin Alsop

The São Paulo Symphony Orchestra Foundation – Fundação Osesp is proud to announce that our Music Director Marin Alsop will become Conductor of Honour at the end of her 8-year tenure, in December 2019. Since she became Chief Conductor, in 2012 (and Music Director one year later), Marin Alsop has been responsible for many remarkable achievements of our Orchestra. Under her baton, Osesp has appeared twice at the BBC Proms, and it has also played for the first time at the Berlin Philharmonie, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Lucerne and Edinburgh Festivals, and Vienna’s Konzerthaus, among other prestigious venues. It has also gone on tour in Brazil, celebrating the Orchestras’s 60th anniversary in 2014.  A complete cycle of Prokofiev’s Symphonies has been released on CD (for the Naxos label), and two new CDs with works by Leonard Bernstein will be released for the composer’s centennial celebrations next year, as part of a boxed set devoted to Ms. Alsop’s long relationship with Bernstein. In the course of the next two seasons, 2018 and 2019, among other projects we plan to release a complete cycle of Brahms’s symphonies on video, conducted and with commentary by Maestra Alsop. Her expert guidance has helped raise the profile of our Orchestra both nationally and internationally; and her humanistic approach has been an inspiration to many of our educational and outreach activities too. She has been active at our International Winter Festival in Campos do Jordão (now in its 48th season), where she has taught several promising Brazilian conductors; and she was also responsible for the creation of a Conducting Class at our own Osesp Academy, To celebrate this long-standing partnership, the Foundation is happy to announce the creation of a Marin Alsop Award for Young Conductors. The details of this prize, which will be for young Brazilian conductors only, will be released in due time. In the words of the President of Osesp Foundation, Fábio Barbosa, “Marin Alsop has been an inspiring Music Director for an extended period of time in São Paulo, and we are truly happy that she will continue to work with our wonderful musicians as the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra’s Conductor of Honour. She is a moving force in the music world, and we are fortunate to have her as our friend and partner. Marin Alsop writes: “I am incredibly proud of our achievements together – from our hugely successful international tours and recordings to our leadership in educating the next generations of young musicians and, especially our many memorable concerts together for our wonderful listeners at Sala Sao Paulo. I look forward to a long association with OSESP and with Brazil.” In 2018 Ms. Alsop will conduct the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra for ten subscription weeks (30 concerts), and she will also continue to teach conducting masterclasses at the Academy. For 2019 there will be many special programmes, including two weeks of celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of our renowned Sala São Paulo. For the Artistc Director of Osesp, Arthur Nestrovski, “Marin has made a historical and indelible contribution to our Orchestra. The São Paulo Symphony Orchestra has developed into a first-class ensemble of international renown, and during these years we have also been able to establish relationships and partnerships with many leading artists and institutions around the globe. “Marin has brought to the orchestra the reliability and inspiration needed to transform it into a unique ensemble”, states the Executive Director, Marcelo Lopes. “She has also encouraged us continuously to strive for excellence, not only on the platform, but on all aspects of the organization.” We congratulate Maestra Alsop for so many great achievements, and we thank her for this very successful history together. May we always be able to make music together, and together to work for a better world, and a more inclusive society, reaffirming the spirit which has always guided all of us at Osesp Foundation.