Despite pleas by its musicians that it consider other candidates, the board of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Tuesday formally offered the post of music director to Marin Alsop, the principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in England, who will become the first woman to head a major American orchestra.
The dispute between the BSO's administrators and musicians poses an immediate challenge to Alsop, 48, who is scheduled to sign a contract here Wednesday but faces daunting problems in winning the loyalty of the roughly 90-member orchestra. The appointment will be effective in 2007. <snip>
Although the musicians avoided criticizing Alsop by name in statements released last weekend by the players committee, they objected to what they viewed as a one-sided search, with some BSO staffers and board members appearing to back Alsop exclusively from the official start of the search seven months ago, if not before. All seven musician members of the search committee and about 90 percent of the orchestra were in favor of extending the search process, according to a statement released Sunday. <snip>
more here:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/arts/bal-artslife-bsoappoint19,1,6779408.story?coll=bal-home-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=trueWhile I'm all for the hiring of a woman conductor, (it's long overdue!), my instincts are telling me this appointment is a big mistake. The arguments I heard from those opposed to hiring Alsop sounded perfectly legit...not the stuff of gender discrimination cases.
She seems like a good conductor, from what I've seen of her; but maybe not the right one for the BSO.