Ballerinas of the New York City Ballet perform Serenade by George Balanchine at the Mariinsky theatre in St.Petersburg, July 30, 2003. AFP/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Marin Alsop on Music In September, 2007, Marin Alsop became music director of the Baltimore Symphony, making her the first woman to head a major American orchestra. She was named a 2005 MacArthur Fellow, the first conductor ever to receive the award. Here, she offers commentary on a broad assortment of classical music.
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra percussionist John Locke stands beside conductor Marin Alsop, who holds the giant hammer Gustav Mahler includes in his Sixth Symphony. Izabel Zambrzycki/Baltimore Symphony Orchestra hide caption
Marin Alsop and John Adams at a performance of Adams' Dr. Atomic at the Cabrillo Festival in 2008. Cabrillo Festival hide caption
A Parting Gift — With Legs — For Marin Alsop At The Cabrillo Festival
Serge Rachmaninoff, photographed in 1919, somewhere outside of San Francisco. Wikimedia Commons hide caption
From a 2012 New York Philharmonic production of Candide, Marin Alsop conducts a cast that includes (from right) Kristin Chenoweth, Jeff Blumenkrantz, Paul Groves and Janine LaManna. Randy Brooke/WireImage hide caption
Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich's once brilliant career took a dive after the official party paper criticized one of his operas in 1936. Shostakovich responded with his powerful Fifth Symphony. Central Press/Getty Images hide caption
Alexander Scriabin originally set out to write a piece called "Orgiastic Poem," centered on physical ecstasy, but later decided to alter the title to something more ambiguous. Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption
Titania awakes clinging rapturously to Bottom, still wearing the donkey's head, in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Mendelssohn wrote music for a production of the play in 1843. Henry Fuseli/Getty Images hide caption
Gustav Mahler wanted each of his symphonies to contain a world of emotions and ideas. Library of Congress hide caption
Benjamin Britten takes a cup of tea during rehearsals for his War Requiem at Coventry Cathedral, in Coventry, England in May, 1962. Erich Auerbach/Getty Images hide caption
Consumed By Violence, With Hope For Peace: Britten's 'War Requiem'
Leonard Bernstein's Age of Anxiety symphony is as unconventional as its creator. Courtesy of Library of Congress hide caption
Rudolph Cronau's drawing of Wagner's opera house, Bayreuth, flanked by his birthplace (left) and place of death. Wikimedia Commons hide caption
Stride piano pioneer James P. Johnson had dreams of becoming a successful symphonic composer. William Gottlieb hide caption
Treasures In The Attic: Finding A Jazz Master's Lost Orchestral Music
The traditional Jewish Kaddish prayer gets turned on its head in Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 3. Fethi Belaid/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Sergei Prokofiev (pictured) wrote a Fifth Symphony that has special resonance in Sao Paulo for conductor Marin Alsop. Library of Congress hide caption
British composer Edward Elgar, seated at his desk at Severn House in Hampstead. His Symphony No. 1 was hailed as the best British symphony ever when it debuted in 1908. Reginald Haines/Getty Images hide caption
Richard Strauss' iconic opening to Also Sprach Zarathustra evokes a sense of vastness and power, Marin Alsop says. Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Actress Jean Seberg plays Joan of Arc in the 1957 Otto Preminger film Saint Joan. AFP/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Giuseppe Verdi poured operatic drama into his Requiem, written in 1874 in memory of his friend Alessandro Manzoni. /Getty Images hide caption
Samuel Barber in 1944. Wikimedia Commons hide caption
