In Sunday’s (6/13) Baltimore Sun, Tim Smith writes, “Marin Alsop, not one to do things by halves, will conduct the last concert of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s season Sunday afternoon and then plunge directly into the new, weeklong BSO Academy that will help amateur musicians get reconnected to their art by working with the pros. Lately, the orchestra’s music director has been doubly active offstage, too, planting firmer roots in Baltimore—city and county. This season, Alsop settled into a condo she bought in a stylishly converted Mount Vernon church. More recently, she purchased a home in the Hunt Valley area that is being renovated and readied for three new occupants in September: Alsop and her partner of two decades, Kristin Jurkscheit, and their nearly 7-year-old-son, Auden. The family’s longtime principal residence has been in Denver, where Jurkscheit is associate principal horn of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra (Alsop is music director emeritus). … While fine-tuning the ensemble, the conductor has steadily made her mark in a variety of other ways—post-concert chats with the audience (hundreds of people typically stay for them); new concert presentations, such as the “Off the Cuff” series that focuses on a single piece; and thematic programming that includes adventurous fare. … Alsop’s imprint offstage is most remarkably demonstrated by OrchKids, a pilot education project seeded with a $100,000 contribution from Alsop.”
Posted June 17, 2010
