Carnegie Hall

Since its first concert in 1954, the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, or Osesp) has become an inseparable part of São Paulo and Brazilian culture, promoting deep cultural and social transformation. The orchestra has toured Latin America, the United States, Europe, China, and Brazil, and it runs a large education and outreach program for more than 25,000 children and teenagers every season. The orchestra has released more than 80 recordings, and its concerts are regularly broadcast on television and radio and livestreamed every week on the internet. The orchestra plays more than 100 concerts every season for nearly 10,000 subscribers at its own concert hall, Sala São Paulo, which was listed in The Guardian in 2015 as one of the 10 best music halls in the world.

In 2012, Marin Alsop was named the orchestra’s principal conductor, and she was appointed music director the following year. In 2013, the orchestra made its fourth European tour, performing for the first time and to great acclaim at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Royal Festival Hall in London, and at the Berlin Philharmonie.

In 2016, the orchestra appeared in major European Summer festivals, conducted by Marin Alsop; in 2018, it began recording a series of albums for Naxos dedicated to Brazilian composers; and in 2019, it toured China and Hong Kong, becoming the first Latin American professional orchestra to perform in those countries. Also in 2019, Osesp premiered All Together: A Global Ode to Joy, a Carnegie Hall project in which Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was sung in Portuguese for the first time. In 2020, Marin Alsop became the orchestra’s conductor of honor when Swiss conductor Thierry Fischer took over as principal conductor and music director.

One of the foremost conductors of our time, Marin Alsop represents a powerful and inspiring voice. The first woman to serve as head of a major orchestra in the United States, South America, Austria, and Great Britain, she is internationally recognized for her innovative approach to programming and audience development, her deep commitment to education, and her advocacy for music’s importance in the world.

Ms. Alsop currently serves as chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the first music director of the University of Maryland’s National Orchestral Institute + Festival, and the first chief conductor and curator of Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, where she curates and conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s summer residencies. She is also conductor of honor of Brazil’s São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (Osesp) and holds the title of music director laureate and OrchKids founder at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where she recently concluded an outstanding 14-year tenure as music director. In addition to enjoying longstanding relationships with the London Philharmonic and London Symphony orchestras, she regularly guest conducts such major international ensembles as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Orchestre de Paris, the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, Filarmonica della Scala, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Royal Concertgebouw orchestras. An ardent champion of new music, she served as music director of California’s Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music for 25 years.

In December 2019, in collaboration with YouTube, Google Arts & Culture, and a host of the world’s leading arts organizations, she spearheaded the #GlobalOdeToJoy, a crowd-sourced video project to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th anniversary and amplify his Ninth Symphony’s call for tolerance, unity, and joy.

The first and only conductor to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, Ms. Alsop has also been honored with the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award and numerous honorary doctorates. Recognized with Grammy, Classical BRIT, and Gramophone awards, her extensive discography includes recordings for Decca, Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, and Sony Classical. In 2002, she founded the Taki Concordia Conducting Fellowship—now renamed in her honor as the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship—to promote and nurture the careers of her fellow female conductors. The Conductor, an award-winning documentary about her life, debuted at New York’s 2021 Tribeca Film Festival.

José Staneck has been called “the David Oistrakh of the harmonica” by French critic Olivier Bellamy, and compared to Andrés Segovia and Mstislav Rostropovich by Brazilian critic Luiz Paulo Horta. Mr. Staneck fuses elements of concert and popular music into a unique style that features remarkable sonorities. Widely known not only as a soloist but also as a producer and musicologist, he has recorded 15 albums, including Villa-Lobos’s Harmonica Concerto with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra under the guidance of Giancarlo Guerrero (Naxos, 2019). Mr. Staneck is also active in several social projects, using his harmonica as an instrument of social transformation.

The São Paulo Symphony Choir was created in 1994 and has been associated with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra since 2001. The choir explores a large and varied repertoire that spans various musical periods in both a capella and symphonic genres. A special emphasis is placed on the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as on works by Brazilian composers. Naomi Munakata was chief conductor until 2017. From that year to 2019, Italian conductor Valentina Peleggi led the group; William Coelho has been chorus master since 2019.

In 2009, the São Paulo Symphony Choir released its first album, Canções do Brasil (Songs of Brazil), which brings together works by Camargo Guarnieri, Marlos Nobre, Villa-Lobos, and other Brazilian composers. In 2015, the group recorded a set of works by Bernstein with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marin Alsop, for Naxos. At the end of 2020, Villa-Lobos: Choral Transcriptions was released. Also published by Naxos and under Valentina Peleggi’s baton, it is a compendium of works by J. S. Bach, R. Schumann, F. Mendelssohn, and other composers, arranged for choir by Villa-Lobos.

Directed by Ms. Alsop, conductor of honor of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, the choir performed at the opening concert of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meetings in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2020, and again in 2021, this time with Yo-Yo Ma and guest artists from seven different countries.