Madame Maestro

The Music Academy of the West concluded its 72nd annual summer festival on a high note when the Academy Festival Orchestra, under conductor Marin Alsop, performed Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7 at the Granada.

The entertaining program also comprised of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon‘s 13-minute piece blue cathedral, just a week after her well received West Coast premiere of Cold Mountain, and Paul Hindemith’s 1934 work Mathis Der Maler.

Alsop, the first woman to lead a major American orchestra when she was appointed maestro of the Baltimore Symphony in 2007, and also conduct the legendary Last Night of the Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2014, which has a worldwide audience of more than 40 million, was at the top of her form.

A cracking end to a glorious season…