Baltimore, MD (Top40 Charts/ Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra announced today that
Alexandra Arrieche, a talented, young Brazilian conductor, will be the fourth recipient of the BSO-Peabody Conducting Fellowship. This one-year program is designed to support the musical and leadership development of today's young conductors. Beginning in
September 2012, Ms. Arrieche will begin a one-year artist diploma program, receiving a full tuition scholarship to the Peabody
Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Arrieche will also receive personal instruction from BSO
Music Director Marin Alsop, who actively shapes the program.
Ms. Arrieche has worked with orchestras in North America, Europe, and her native South America, and has received numerous awards for her conducting, including the 2011 Taki Concordia Conducting Fellowship, which was founded by Maestra Alsop. As a result, Ms. Arrieche has traveled with Maestra Alsop between São Paulo and Baltimore for the past year to further develop her conducting. She will continue her studies in Baltimore as she begins her year-long fellowship with the BSO and Peabody Conservatory.
"I am thrilled to be selected as the BSO-Peabody Conducting Fellow. This is a fantastic opportunity and definitely the experience that all young conductors seek. It is a privilege to work with Maestra Alsop. Shadowing her both in Baltimore and São Paulo has already benefited me immensely. It is inspiring to watch her conduct. Her passion for music is contagious. Her dialog with the audience and her idea of the conductor's duties in 21st century society are remarkable. I am eager not only to improve my musical abilities, but also to gain a more full understanding of the additional skills in PR, marketing and fundraising, for example, that are required of music directors of modern orchestras."
"Alexandra excelled as the 2011 Taki Concordia Conducting Fellow and I have no doubt she'll also thrive as the BSO-Peabody Conducting Fellow. Her developing skills as a conductor coupled with her musical sensitivity make her a leader that orchestras respond to and want to follow," said Maestra Alsop. "Her natural ability combined with this intensive training program will lay the groundwork for a promising future as a conductor."
"We're thrilled that Ms. Arrieche will be joining other highly talented young conductors to study with Gustav Meier, Markand Thakar and Marin Alsop, who is a Distinguished Visiting Artist at Peabody," said Jeffrey Sharkey,
Director of the Peabody
Institute of The Johns Hopkins University. "To have Marin as a mentor and work with the BSO, as this fellowship makes possible, is truly an exceptional opportunity for an emerging conductor."
About
Alexandra Arrieche, conductor
The winner of Marin Alsop's Taki Concordia Conducting Fellowship in 2011, Brazilian-born conductor
Alexandra Arrieche has showcased her talents on an international level. Arrieche was invited as a teenager to study composition with renowned Spanish composer Cristobal Halffter. After studying composition, her first conducting teacher was Roberto Tibiriçá, with whom she studied for three years in São Paulo. She has also participated in master classes with Kurt Masur,
Fabio Mechetti, Johannes Schlaefli, Hugh Wolf, Robert Spano and Cliff Colnot. In 2009, Maestro
Fabio Mechetti cited Arrieche as "one of the best Brazilian Conductors of the new generation."
In 2007, Ms. Arrieche won the University of São Paulo Orchestra conducting competition and became the Assistant Conductor of one of Brazil's finest orchestras, a position that she held until 2010 when she came to the USA. She has conducted the North Czech Philharmonic Teplice, the Minas Gerais Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Brazilian Youth Symphony and the São Paulo Orchestra. In addition to these groups, she has also worked with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony, the Bard Conservatory Orchestra and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.
Motivated by the lack of opportunities for young Brazilian conductors to work with native orchestras, Arrieche planned and organized a series of workshops for Brazilian conductors in 2009. In 2010, she was offered a place in Maestro Harold Farberman's conducting master class and a scholarship to Bard College.
In 2011, Arrieche won the Taki Concordia Conducting Fellowship founded by Marin Alsop. Alsop established the Taki Concordia Conducting Fellowship in 2002 with the mission "to promote, present, and encourage talented women conductors at the beginning of their professional careers." As a result of being awarded the fellowship, Arrieche became Alsop's fellow and has worked with her in São Paulo and Baltimore.
About the BSO-Peabody Conducting Fellowship Program
Beginning in the 2007-2008 season, the BSO with
Music Director Marin Alsop and the Peabody
Institute with Gustav Meier, in partnership with the League of American Orchestras, launched its Conducting Fellows Program, a collaborative endeavor modeled after the League's American Conducting Fellows Program, established in 2002. This marked the first partnership of its kind in the country between a conservatory and a symphony orchestra. The Baltimore partnership is a unique one-year program designed to provide exceptionally talented conductors in the early stages of their careers an opportunity to hone their skills before assuming a role with a professional orchestra. In conjunction with the initial partnership team, the BSO and the Peabody Institute, the League played an important guiding role in helping the two institutions develop a comprehensive program agenda and curriculum, and also assisted with evaluations of the program during the pilot period. Benefits of the conducting fellowship include continuous on-site training with the BSO and academic studies at Peabody and Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. Gustav Meier, head of the conducting faculty at Peabody, serves as the fellowship's primary academic instructor. At the end of the one-year program, which begins in
September 2012 and concludes in August 2013, Ms. Arrieche will receive a post-graduate Artist's Diploma in Conducting from the Peabody Institute. Previous BSO-Peabody Conducting Fellows have been Joseph Young, Ilyich Rivas and Lee Mills.
About the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
The Grammy Award-winning Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is internationally recognized as having achieved a preeminent place among the world's most important orchestras. Acclaimed for its enduring pursuit of artistic excellence, the BSO has attracted a devoted national and international following while maintaining deep bonds throughout Maryland with innovative education and community outreach initiatives.
The BSO made musical history in
September 2007, when Maestra Marin Alsop led her inaugural concerts as the Orchestra's 12th music director, making her the first woman to head a major American orchestra. With her highly praised artistic vision, her dynamic musicianship and her commitment to accessibility in classical music, Maestra Alsop's leadership has ushered in a new era for the BSO and its audiences.
Under
Music Director Marin Alsop's leadership, the BSO has rapidly added several critically acclaimed albums to its already impressive discography. The BSO recently released Dvořák's Symphonies Nos. 6, 7 and 8, the final two discs in its three-disc Dvořák cycle. In August 2009, the BSO and Marin Alsop released Bernstein's Mass featuring baritone Jubilant Sykes, the
Morgan State University Choir and the Peabody Children's Chorus. The album rose to number six on the Classical Billboard Charts and received a 2009 Grammy nomination for Best Classical Album. The Orchestra made its foray into online distribution in April 2007 with the release of a live-concert recording of Stravinsky's The Rite of
Spring on iTunes, which quickly became the site's number one classical music download.
In addition to the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, where the orchestra has performed for 28 years, the BSO is a founding partner and the resident orchestra at the new state-of-the-art
Music Center at Strathmore, just outside Washington, D.C. With the opening of Strathmore in February 2005, the BSO became the nation's only major orchestra with year-round venues in two metropolitan areas.
About the Peabody Institute
Located in the heart of Baltimore's Mount Vernon Cultural District, the Peabody
Institute was founded in 1857 as America's first academy of music by philanthropist
George Peabody. Today, Peabody boasts a preeminent faculty, a nurturing, collaborative learning environment and the academic resources of one of the nation's leading universities, Johns Hopkins. Through its degree-granting Conservatory and its community-based Preparatory music and dance school, Peabody trains musicians and dancers of every age and at every level, from small children to seasoned professionals, from dedicated amateurs to winners of international competitions. Each year, Peabody stages nearly 100 major concerts and performances, ranging from classical to contemporary to jazz, many of them free — a testament to the vision of
George Peabody.
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