music
BY BRETT CAMPBELL
PHOTO BY GRANT LEIGHTON
MARIN ALSOP
Happy Returns
Eugene’s brightest old musical flame returns
“I
will never forget that those
formative years spent as music
director in Eugene helped
launch my career as a conductor,” says
Marin Alsop in a press release from the
Eugene Symphony. Maybe not, but
someone sure forgot to tell whoever
created her website.
The word “Eugene” doesn’t appear on
either the short or long version of Alsop’s
biography on marinalsop.com, though the
site finds room to mention her tenure at
other posts before and after her seven years
here: the Colorado Orchestra, Bournemouth
Symphony, and the Cabrillo Festival.
You have to drill down into the site’s
“timeline” section to discover that Alsop
was named conductor of the Eugene
Symphony in 1989 and named conductor
emerita in 1996. By then, the New York
native was already guest conducting some
of the world’s finest orchestras, with critics
touting her as the likely first female music
director of a major American orchestra —
a prediction that came to pass in 2007,
when Alsop was named music director of
the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra ,
which she brings to the Hult, April 2.
What really matters to us is that Eugene
hasn’t forgotten Alsop, where she
demonstrated one of her two most
prominent accomplishments: Like her
mentor, the great American conductor/
composer/advocate Leonard Bernstein,
she’s one of classical music’s great
communicators. Before Alsop was
explaining the genre to millions of NPR
listeners, she was bringing Eugeneans
inside the music through her affable,
informal talks and demonstrations from
the stage. Easygoing, down to earth and
humorous even in the toughest rehearsals,
she’s won fans among musicians and
listeners, and created outreach programs
that have brought classical music to
thousands of people who would otherwise
never experience it.
Alsop’s communication skills facilitated
her other main achievement: a deserved
reputation as a powerful advocate for today’s
music, particularly during her two decades at
the helm of California’s wonderful annual
summer Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary
Music, where she frequently featured the
music of then-emerging, now-established
(thanks in part to her) composers such as
Christopher Rouse, Michael Daugherty and
Jennifer Higdon.
Alsop proved that contemporary
audiences could embrace contemporary
American works by featuring them in
24 MARCH 29, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
mainstream concerts during her posts in
Denver and elsewhere, including here,
where she maintains a strong base of
friends and fans.
Even though she’s since won Musical
America’s Conductor of the Year award,
made dozens of recordings, become the only
conductor ever to win a coveted MacArthur
“genius grant” and now regularly leads
orchestras all over the globe (including, this
year, taking a new post in Sao Paulo),
Alsop’s actions belie her website’s neglect:
She’s made return appearances to conduct
her old band and, last summer, the Oregon
Bach Festival orchestra.
Monday’s program features one of
Alsop’s beloved Russian composers
(Tchaikovsky’s passionate Symphony
No.5) and three American composers:
Aaron Copland, Joan Tower and Jennifer
Higdon, whose thrilling, Grammy-winning
percussion concerto was a crowd-pleasing
highlight of last year’s Oregon Symphony
season and will feature the same
spectacular soloist, Scottish percussion
master Colin Currie .
Another former Eugenean makes a
welcome return to town April 5, when jazz
trumpeter/singer and composer/arranger
Douglas Detrick performs at Sam Bond’s
with fellow UO alum guitarist/mandolinist
Kenny Feinstein and Portland singer/
songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/not-mayor
Sam Adams . They’ll each perform in duo
sets, with Detrick accompanied by Cherry
Poppin’ Daddies guitarist Bill Marsh in
folk song arrangements and originals.
You can hear current UO jazzers all
month, beginning April 6 at the school’s
Aasen-Hull Hall, with faculty pianist Toby
Koenisgsberg ’s quartet playing jazz classics,
contemporary compositions and arrangements
of songs by the late, great Portland songwriter
Elliott Smith. On Tuesday, April 10, the
Oregon Jazz Ensemble, with current and
former UO profs Idit Shner , Victor
Steinhardt and Carl Woideck, play the
immortal music of Duke Ellington.
They’re not from here, but the acoustic
guitar and fiddle duo of Molly Mason and
Jay Ungar have performed at The Shedd so
many times that they count as frequent
guests. They’re back on March 29, with
daughter and son-in-law Mike & Ruthy
Merenda , better known as The Mammals.
The Shedd also hosts a benefit for Dr. John
Haines’s World Vision Missions, which helps
treat eye diseases afflicting poor countries,
featuring the music of Concrete Loveseat
and Strange Desserts .
ew
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