One of the foremost conductors of our time, Marin Alsop is a powerful and inspiring voice. Convinced that music has the power to change lives, she is internationally recognized for her innovative approach to programming and audience development, deep commitment to education, and championing of music’s importance in the world. The first woman to serve as the head of major orchestras in the United States, South America, Austria, and Great Britain, she is, as the New York Times put it, not only “a formidable musician and a powerful communicator” but also “a conductor with a vision.”

The 2024-25 season marks Alsop’s sixth as Chief Conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, which she leads at Vienna’s Musikverein and Konzerthaus, as well as on recordings, broadcasts, and international tours; her second as Artistic Director & Chief Conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony; her second as Principal Guest Conductor of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra; and her first as Principal Guest Conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She is also Chief Conductor of the Ravinia Festival, where she leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s annual summer residencies, and is the first Music Director of the National Orchestral Institute + Festival (NOI+F) at the University of Maryland, where she launched a new academy for young conductors and leads the NOI+F Philharmonic each June.

Alsop becomes the first U.S.-born woman to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic when she makes her long- awaited debut with the orchestra in February 2025, leading the world premiere of a new commission from Outi Tarkiainen. Other 2024-25 highlights include an evening devoted to Gustav and Alma Mahler with the Philharmonia Orchestra, a world premiere from Nico Muhly with the New York Philharmonic, a New Year’s Eve concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra, a reprise of Julia Wolfe’s Her Story with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., and return engagements with the symphonies of Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, and San Francisco.

In 2021, Alsop assumed the title of Music Director Laureate and OrchKids Founder of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which she continues to conduct each season. During her outstanding 14-year tenure as its Music Director, she led the orchestra on its first European tour in 13 years, released multiple award- winning recordings, and conducted more than two dozen world premieres, as well as founding OrchKids, its groundbreaking music education program for Baltimore’s most disadvantaged youth. In 2019, after seven years as Music Director, Alsop became Conductor of Honour of Brazil’s São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP), with which she continues to undertake major projects each season. Deeply committed to new music, she was Music Director of California’s Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music for 25 years, leading 174 premieres.

Alsop has longstanding relationships with the London Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestras, and regularly guest conducts such major international ensembles as the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Budapest Festival Orchestra, and Orchestre de Paris, besides leading the La Scala Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, and others. In collaboration with YouTube and Google Arts & Culture, she developed and spearheaded the “Global Ode to Joy” (GOTJ), a crowd-sourced video project to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th anniversary in 2020. A full decade after making history as the first female conductor of London’s Last Night of the Proms, in 2023 she became the first woman and first American to guest conduct three Last Nights in the festival’s long history. She made her triumphant debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2024, leading a new production of John Adams’s oratorio El Niño that showcased her “deep command of Adams’s music” (Financial Times, UK).

Recognized with BBC Music “Album of the Year” and Emmy nominations in addition to Grammy, Classical BRIT, and Gramophone awards, Alsop’s discography comprises more than 200 titles. These include recordings for Decca, Harmonia Mundi, and Sony Classical, as well as her acclaimed Naxos cycles of Brahms with the London Philharmonic, Dvořák, with the Baltimore Symphony, and Prokofiev with the São Paulo Symphony. Recent releases include a live account of Candide with the London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus; a Kevin Puts collection with the Baltimore Symphony; and John Adams and Margaret Brouwer collections for Naxos, a complete Schumann symphonic cycle for Naxos, and world premiere recordings of Malek Jandali concertos for Cedille Records, all with the Vienna RSO.

The first and only conductor to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, Alsop has also been honored with the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award. Amongst many other awards and academic positions, she served as both 2021-22 Harman/Eisner Artist-in-Residence of the Aspen Institute Arts Program and 2020 Artist- in-Residence at Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts; is Director of Graduate Conducting at the Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute; and holds Honorary Doctorates from Yale University and the Juilliard School. To promote and nurture the careers of her fellow female conductors, in 2002 she founded the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship. The Conductor, a documentary about her life, debuted at New York’s 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and has subsequently been broadcast on PBS television, screened at festivals and in theaters nationwide, nominated for the 2023 Emmy for Best Arts and Culture Documentary, and recognized with the Naples International Film Festival’s 2021 Focus on the Arts Award.

Ami Campbell (Davolt) holds the title of Associate Concertmaster of the Dallas Opera Orchestra, and this season will again serve as Acting Concertmaster for The Dallas Opera and Guest Concertmaster with The Atlanta Opera. Previously, she held positions in the violin sections of The Seattle Symphony, The St Louis Symphony, The Colorado Symphony (including 1 yr as assistant concertmaster), The Portland Opera and others before settling in Dallas with her husband, DSO trumpeter Russell Campbell. In addition to these positions, she has performed as a frequent sub with The Dallas Symphony for 18 years, and maintains a violin studio. In the summers, Ami takes part in the Bravo Vail Valley Music Festival (Colorado) and The Grand Teton Music Festival (Jackson Hole, WY). Ami’s teachers included Raphael Spiro (Portland, OR), Sally Thomas and Steven Clapp (Juilliard), Henryk Kowalski (Indiana University) and Syoko Aki (Yale University). She was honored to have had additional studies with both Josef Gingold (Indiana) and Dorothy DeLay (Juilliard). Other engagements around the US have included guest artist with Pacific Northwest Ballet (associate concertmaster and soloist), Javalina Chamber Music Festival (which she founded in Tucson, AZ) Seattle Chamber Players, Seattle Opera, Music in the Mountains (Durango), Chintimini Chamber Music Festival (Oregon), Oregon Ballet Theater, Sarasota Opera, Cascade Music Festival, Vancouver Symphony (WA, Concertmaster), The Spoleto Festival and others.

After reading music at Edinburgh University, Jo joined the record company Select Music – working as a label manager and then in international A&R for Naxos Records. He then went to Decca Records as an Executive Producer, for artists such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Alfred Brendel and Albrecht Mayer – before moving across to the world of management at Askonas Holt in late 2009 as an Artist Manager. He is an Associate Director, and manages conductors such as Marin Alsop, Lidiya Yankovskaya, Michael Tilson Thomas, Emmanuel Villaume and Domingo Hindoyan.

Artistic and musical director of the Paris Mozart Orchestra
Co-founder and co-director of La Maestra

Claire Gibault began her career at the Opéra National de Lyon before becoming the first woman to conduct the Filarmonica della Scala and the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic. She was music director of Musica per Roma from 2000 to 2002, and alongside her own flourishing career she spent a number of years as assistant to Claudio Abbado, collaborating with him at Milan’s La Scala, Vienna’s Staatsoper and London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden. In 2004 she helped Abbado found the Orchestra Mozart di Bologna and continued her association with him until 2007.

Over the years Claire has conducted at some of the world’s most renowned opera houses, theatres and festivals, including London’s Royal Opera House, the Edinburgh International Festival, Glyndebourne Festival, Washington Opera, Théâtre du Châtelet, Opéra Comique and Théâtre des Célestins in Lyon. As guest conductor she has worked with the Halle Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale de la RAI, Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège, Orchestre National de Bordeaux, Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Orchestre de l’Opéra de Marseille, Våsterås Sinfonietta and Osaka Symphony Orchestra.

In 2014 she conducted the world premiere of Jean-Claude Petit’s opera Colomba at the Opéra de Marseille. That same year she was invited by Milan’s Orchestra Verdi to conduct Mahler’s Symphony n°10 alongside the world premiere of Fabio Vacchi’s Veronica Franco, before returning to the Orchestra Verdi to conduct the premiere of Fabio Vacchi’s Sull’acqua during Milan’s Universal Exhibition. More recently she conducted world premieres of works by Edith Canat de Chizy and Philippe Hersant at the Philharmonie de Paris, Silvia Colasanti’s Orfeo at the Théâtre de la Liberté in Toulon, as well as works by Chopin and Berlioz with Mexico City’s Orquesta Filarmónica UNAM.

In 2011, inspired by her experience with Claudio Abbado, Claire founded the Paris Mozart Orchestra, giving some thirty performances with her musicians each season and collaborating regularly with leading composers.

Increasingly in demand for conducting masterclasses, Claire has recently worked with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden’s National Opera Studio & Jette Parker Young Artists Programme. Her own series of conducting masterclasses has been running in Paris for the last five years.

Together with the Philharmonie de Paris, Claire founded and co-directs La Maestra International Competition and Academy for Women Conductors, which had its three first editions in 2020, 2022 and 2024.

Barry Green, served as Principal Bassist of the Cincinnati Symphony for 28 years, and more recently Principal Bassist of the California Symphony and Sun Valley Idaho Summer Symphony. As former Executive Director of the International Society of Bassists, he taught U. of Calif. Santa Cruz for 22 years before moving back to Cincinnati in the spring of 2018 and taught bass and his inspirational courses on the mind-body and spirit at Ohio State University School of Music until 2022. He also teaches special classes at local Cincinnati public schools and has organized the Bass Club Cincinnati serving bass players of all ages and styles of bass playing.

As a double bass soloist, Barry is known for his creative and eclectic ‘Green Machine’ concerts including the bass in jazz, folk, contemporary and world music in combination with, dance, voice, art and theater.  Green has created three new multimedia productions called Anna’s Way, from Inspiration to Artistry and Anna’s Gift, the Way of Passion and Anna’s Promise. These unique hour-long productions are for solo bass, narration with background visuals and performed in combo version as well as with full concert band and chamber orchestra. These stories are based on his inspirational books devoted to the mind, body and human spirit.

Green was the first bass soloist ever to solo with the Cincinnati Symphony in 1970 when he commissioned Frank Proto to write the Concerto for Bass and Orchestra conducted by Erich Kunzel. He has since twice appeared with the Cincinnati Symphony under the late Maestro Thomas Schippers who personally commission the Frank Proto Violin and Double Bass Concerto (with Ruggiero Ricci). In 1993 Green performed Jon Deak’s concerto/Jack and the Beanstalk conducted by Jesus Lopez-Cobos.. He most recently performed the Deak concerto in February 2005 in with the US Air Force Band in Wash DC, Constitution Hall and in August 2016 he commissioned and performed Anna’s Promise World Premiere with the US Army Orchestra, Pershing’s Own in Washington DC.

He is author of the Doubleday book The Inner Game of Music, with W. Timothy Gallwey, (1986) which deals with musicians reaching their potential in performance and learning which has sold over 250,000 copies worldwide. He has written seven Inner Game of Music Workbooks published by GIA Music for keyboard, voice, instruments and ensembles. Green’s 2nd book, The Mastery of Music, Ten Pathways to True Artistry published by Broadway/Doubleday in May 2003. The Mastery of Music is based interviews with over 120 world famous musicians on topics of courage, passion, creativity, discipline, humility etc. It deals with qualities of greatness from the human spirit that transcend all professions. Green most recent book is called Bringing Music to Life is published by GIA Music, 2009 and exploring three techniques of breath, pulse and movement that allow the musician to channel expression through their bodies.  This work is based on exploring creativity and inspiration through collaboration with the great improvisation cellist David Darling and his organization called Music for People. The DVD on the same title was also just released by GIA Music in December 2010.

Barry is active as a bass soloist, recording artist, author and teacher. Barry has been directing bass camps and schools for over 48 years. Green has studied with the legendary bassist François Rabbath. Barry’s most recent project includes a unique exercise program for all strings with collaborator-educator Bob Gillespie called Stringersize. This program integrates traditional and non-traditional string techniques with popular music beats and videos. Green has also produced an 8-part educational an inspirational series of videos with co-host Jason Heath called Buckeye Bass Bashes published on YouTube. His most recent multi-media concert programs include a documentary style presentation called Music from Ukraine and Beyond and has raised significant funds through the Hope4Ukraine Society of Cincinnati. Barry’s most recent multi-media narrated production is called The Four Elements and appeals to audiences of any age who is concerned about the wellbeing of the planet!

Green’s wrote two bass method books for bass: The Popular Bass Method in three volumes in collaboration with Bay Area jazz bassist Jeff Neighbor and Advanced Techniques of Double Bass Playing. Green’s recent CD recordings include Ole-Cool with colleagues from Spain and American and Live from St. Croix in recital with pianist James Hart as well as a jazz inspired recording with Lenny Carlson called Seat of the Pants. Green can be heard with numerous recordings on YouTube.