Two British orchestras, the City of London Sinfonia and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, recently appointed the dynamic American conductor Marin Alsop to the position of Principal Guest Conductor, beginning in September 1999. Marin Alsop’s relationship with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra began in 1996 and she has since been a regular visitor to Glasgow. She returns in May to continue recording a Barber cycle with the RSNO, and will conduct Mahler 5 there next season. Such was the overwhelming response from the musicians to her two programmes in the Barbican’s Inventing America season last Autumn that Alsop was immediately approached by the City of London Sinfonia to be the first ever Principal Guest Conductor in their 25-year history. Her next appearance with the CLS will be in November 1999, in a programme including MacMillan’s Veni, Veni, Emmanuel with soloist Colin Currie. Guest appearances in Europe in the next year include: London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Northern Sinfonia, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Helsinki Philharmonic, Orchestre de Toulouse, Netherlands Chamber, Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Düsseldorf Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Vienna Radio Symphony. Alsop continues as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony, with North American guest appearances in the remainder of 1999 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco, Toronto, Detroit and New World symphonies and the New York Philharmonic as part of their Copland Festival this Autumn.