On Saturday, Marin Alsop Leads NY Philharmonic in Central Park for Worldwide CNN Broadcast; Then Conducts Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society in U.S. Premiere of Global Ode to Joy Project, with New Text by Tracy K. Smith (Aug 21 & 27)

Marin Alsop leads the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (photo: Lucas Beck)

“A formidable musician and a powerful communicator, a conductor with a vision.”

– New York Times on Marin Alsop

Marin Alsop conducts the first of two high-profile August engagements this Saturday (Aug 21), leading the New York Philharmonic—with guest vocalists Jennifer Hudson and Andrea Bocelli—as the opening act of the gigantic “WE LOVE NYC: The Homecoming Concert” in Central Park, to be broadcast live in its entirety on CNN. Less than a week later, on August 27, Alsop will conduct Boston’s storied, two-century-old Handel and Haydn Society in a free performance of Beethoven’s Ninth “Choral” Symphony, marking the U.S. premiere of her “Global Ode to Joy” project with new text written by former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, at the DCR Hatch Shell.

For New York’s “WE LOVE NYC: The Homecoming Concert,” an all-star event on Central Park’s Great Lawn produced by New York City, Clive Davis, and Live Nation, Alsop leads the New York Philharmonic in Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide; a newly arranged New York Medley by William Ross; “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel and di Capua’s “O sole mio,” both sung by tenor Andrea Bocelli; and “Nessun dorma” from Puccini’s Turandot, sung by Oscar and Grammy winner Jennifer Hudson in her New York Philharmonic debut. The full concert will be broadcast live worldwide on CNN, CNN International, and CNN en Español beginning at 5:00pm ET. It will also be viewable without a cable login on CNN.com and via CNNgo apps for Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Android TV, Chromecast, and Roku.

When Alsop leads the Handel and Haydn Society in Beethoven’s Ninth “Choral” Symphony at Boston’s DCR Hatch Shell, it will mark the U.S. premiere of both her “Global Ode to Joy” project and Tracy K. Smith’s new English text for the last movement of the symphony. In 2020, Alsop launched the “Global Ode to Joy” as a worldwide celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday, for which she would conduct the Ninth Symphony with ten orchestras on six continents, using new interpretations of the “Ode to Joy” in various languages; Carnegie Hall commissioned Smith to create the English version. When the pandemic struck, Alsop collaborated instead with Google Arts & Culture, YouTube and a host of key international arts organizations to launch the crowd-sourced video project #GlobalOdeToJoy, the finale of which can be seen here. This past July, the conductor was finally able to lead her first live performance of the Global Ode to Joy project since the pandemic began, with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.

The first conductor to ever receive a MacArthur Fellowship, Alsop was also named 2021 Classical Woman of the Year by American Public Media’s Performance Today. After concluding a transformative 14-year tenure as Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony, where she was the first woman to serve as music director of a major American orchestra, she began her tenure as the first female Chief Conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2019, and was appointed to the expressly created new position of Chief Conductor and Curator of Chicago’s Ravinia Festival in February 2020. She has also served as the first female principal conductor with the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, and principal guest conductor with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. A new documentary about her life titled The Conductor, by filmmaker Bernadette Wegenstein, recently debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival.

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Marin Alsop: August engagements

Aug 21
New York, NY
Central Park
“WE LOVE NYC: The Homecoming Concert”
New York Philharmonic
With Jennifer Hudson and Andrea Bocelli
Live worldwide broadcast on CNN begins at 5:00pm ET
Free tickets and VIP tickets for purchase available here

Aug 27
Boston, MA
DCR Hatch Shell
Handel and Haydn Society
Beethoven: Ninth “Choral” Symphony
Text by Tracy K. Smith (U.S. premiere)

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Press Room

On Saturday, Marin Alsop Leads NY Philharmonic in Central Park for Worldwide CNN Broadcast; Then Conducts Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society in U.S. Premiere of Global Ode to Joy Project, with New Text by Tracy K. Smith (Aug 21 & 27)