This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. Here's some of the things that were said about my guest

Marin Alsop early in her career when she fought to be accepted as a conductor. These are quotes

from fellow conductors who found it too much of a stretch to take a female conductor seriously.

Here goes. A sweet girl on the podium can make one's thoughts drift toward something else.

For me, seeing a woman at the podium, it's not my cup of tea. This quote gets right to the point,

I don't really like women conductors. Alsop became the first woman to lead a major

American orchestra in 2007 when she became the music director of the Baltimore Symphony

Orchestra, a position she held for 14 years. There were other firsts, including first woman

to be the principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in England and the

Sao Paulo State Symphony Orchestra in Brazil and the first and only conductor to receive

a MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called Genius Award. Her mentor was Leonard Bernstein and

like Bernstein, her passion for music is wide-ranging from the standard repertoire, to symphonic

jazz compositions, film scores, and contemporary works. She's currently the principal conductor

of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, making her the first woman to ever lead a

Viennese orchestra. She's the subject of the new documentary, The Conductor. It's streaming

on the PBS website and on several other streaming platforms.

Marin Alsop, welcome back to Fresh Air, it's been too long. Congratulations on this new

documentary, it's terrific. Oh, thanks so much. I want to start on a very sober note.

And I should mention that we're recording this on March 22nd and we're running it later

than that. And you and I don't know what will have happened in Ukraine in the interim.

But I want to start with a performance that you conducted of the Ukrainian Anthem with

the orchestra de Paris. And I believe early March, what would you say about this piece

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