You Can't Do That

A moving, energetic memoir by the pioneering conductor Marin Alsop, the first woman to head major orchestras in the United States, Berlin, and elsewhere.

When she was nine years old, Marin Alsop’s father took her to see Leonard Bernstein conduct the New York Philharmonic. She watched the famous conductor onstage and knew that someday she would be up there too.

You Can’t Do That: Conducting a Life Against the Odds is the story of a stubborn young girl—raised in a music-obsessed family and exposed at an early age to the rigors of classical music training— who wouldn’t quit until she stood on the podium, baton in hand; raised it; and with a downstroke, gestured to the orchestra to commence.

Told using the framework of Bernstein’s controversial and genre defying theatrical work Mass, Alsop moves through her life to tell her equally surprising and unlikely story of a trailblazing career. As the daughter of professional musicians, she began piano studies at age two, switched to violin at five, entered Juilliard Pre-College at seven and Yale at sixteen, and transferred to Juilliard for her bachelor's and master's degrees in violin performance. From there she went on to become the first woman to serve as the head of a major orchestra in the United States, South America, Austria, and Britain.

In this moving, highly original memoir, Alsop tells the story of her steadfast pursuit of a life filled with music.