As highlighted in this week's Classical Music Agenda, the newly appointed music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Maestra Marin Alsop, is the first woman to take the helm of a major American orchestra. Tonight in the Music Center at Strathmore, she will lead the BSO in a program that features Fearful Symmetries by American composer John Adams. Last night, Marin Alsop sat down with John Adams at the quirky alternative venue known as Baltimore Theater Project, to inaugurate Composers in Conversation, a new series that brings living composers to speak to audiences about their music. In an hour-long dialogue, Adams spoke about his admiration for Beethoven, whose seventh symphony he will conduct at the BSO's concerts next week, as well as Mahler, whose Fifth Symphony Marin Alsop will conduct this week. more ›