Conducting Fellow Alexandra Arrieche to Remain with BSO Through 2013-14 Season

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and the Peabody Conservatory announced today that BSO-Peabody Conducting Fellow Alexandra Arrieche will extend her appointment through the 2013-2014 season. Ms. Arrieche began her Fellowship at the start of the 2012-2013 season, receiving a full tuition scholarship to complete a one-year artist diploma program at the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University. Now that Ms. Arrieche has completed her degree, the fellowship has been restructured to include a larger level of commitment to conducting at the BSO.

Notably, Ms. Arrieche will lead the BSO in a program of Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky at the Weinberg Center for the Performing Arts in Frederick, Md. on Saturday, October 5th at 8 p.m. She will also conduct the Overture from Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall on Thursday, February 27th at 8 p.m. and Sunday, March 2nd at 3 p.m. BSO Music Director Marin Alsop will continue to provide personal instruction and guidance to Ms. Arrieche.

Established in 2007, the BSO-Peabody Conducting Fellowship is a partnership between Marin Alsop and Gustav Meier, director of the graduate conducting program at the Peabody Conservatory, to assist exceptional young conductors with their careers.

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. Showing promise in her early studies as a pianist and vocalist, 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 United States. She has conducted the North Czech Philharmonic Teplice, the Minas Gerais Philharmonic, the Londrina 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, Ms. 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. Maestra 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." Ms. Arrieche also earned the BSO-Peabody Conducting Fellowship for the 2012-2013 season, which was recently extended through the 2013-2014 season. As a result, she has the continued opportunity to work with Maestra Alsop both in Baltimore and São Paulo.

To post a comment, you must register and login.