Marin Alsop-led Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship Names Winners

Alena Hron has been named the 2024-2026 Taki Alsop Conducting Fellow.

The fellowship, created in 2002 by Marin Alsop with support from Tomio Taki, is dedicated to helping women conductors advance in their classical music careers through coaching and mentorship.

Czech conductor Alena Hron was selected out of over 150 applicants. Hron active in collaborations with the Prague Chamber Philharmonic, the Prague Philharmonic Choir, the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra, and other noted Czech ensembles.

Greek conductor Nefeli Chadouli is the Associate Taki Alsop Conducting Fellow. Chadouli directs the Babylon Orchester Berlin and founded the Youth Orchestra at the National Conservatory of Greece in 2014.

Further additional recipients of the award include Cuban conductor Jessica Altarriba, Danish conductor Hannah Howard Andresen, American conductor Micah Gleason, and Irish conductor Karen Ní Bhroin. Altarriba is a conducting fellow with the Chicago Sinfonietta and the New Jersey Symphony. Andresen has led the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in Norway and served as a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival. Also an accomplished mezzo-soprano, Gleason serves as the Hauser Conducting Fellow at the Curtis Institute and has conducted the Dallas Opera Orchestra. Ní Bhroin has conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra, and will make her London Symphony Orchestra debut later this year.

New York-born Marin Alsop is one of the leading conductors working today. Alsop is the chief conductor of Chicago-area Ravinia Festival, the artistic director of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, the chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the honorary conductor of the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra. She is also music director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. In January 2024, Alsop was named the next principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, a position she’ll assume later this year.

Over the Taki Alsop Conductor Fellowship program’s existence, 36 conductors from 23 countries have been awarded. This figure includes past fellowship winners Karina Canellakis, Mei-Ann Chen, Jeri Lynne Johnson, and Valentina Peleggi. 22 of these women conductors — nearly two thirds — currently hold music director or chief conductor positions in orchestras around the world. The 2024 TACF conference will be held in July at Ravinia Festival, in Highland Park, Illinois.