Marin Alsop made musical history last month when she became the first woman to head a major American orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. And this week Brighton audiences got the opportunity to see her in action with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
A petite blonde, she captured a big sound - not least in her reading of Samuel Barber's Symphony No 2.
This is a huge one-movement work, brash, noisy and exuberant, and ideally suited to Alsop's big gestures. Her bounce and extravagant style of conducting was also eminently suited to her exciting and superbly upbeat reading of that old Beethoven warhorse, his fabulous Fifth Symphony.
But the highlight of Wednesday's concert was the all too rare appearance of violinist Tasmin Little, playing Max Bruch's Second Violin Concerto.
Little is a dramatic virtuoso of the first order, and her account of this piece was a powerful but romantic reading that hit the heart-strings and the head at the same time.
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