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As an internationally renowned symphonic and operatic conductor,
Gustavo Dudamel is motivated by a profound belief in music's power
to unite and inspire. He is currently serving as Music Director of
the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela and Music &
Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the impact
of his leadership extends from the greatest concert stages to
classrooms, cinemas and innovative digital platforms around the
world. Dudamel also appears as guest conductor with some of the
world's most famous musical institutions: in 2017/18, he tours
Europe with the Berlin Philharmonic, and takes the Vienna
Philharmonic on a tour of the Americas, with concerts in New York's
Carnegie Hall, Mexico City's Bellas Artes, Bogotá's Teatro Mayor,
and the Teatro Municipal in Santiago de Chile, as well as the famed
Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. This season also sees Dudamel's
return to the opera house, conducting a new production of
Puccini's La bohème at the Opéra
National de Paris.
With Dudamel now in his ninth season as Music & Artistic
Director, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has dramatically expanded
the scope of its community outreach programs, most notably through
his creation of Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), influenced by
the philosophy of Venezuela's admired El Sistema, which encourages
social development through music. With YOLA and diverse local
educational initiatives, Dudamel brings music to children in
under-served communities of Los Angeles. These programs have in
turn inspired similar efforts throughout the United States, as well
as in Sweden (Hammarkullen), Scotland (Raploch) and around the
world.
For the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Dudamel, not only is the
breadth of audiences reached remarkable, but also the depth of
programming. LA Phil programs continue to represent the best and
boldest in new music, including numerous premieres and commissions
by composers such as John Adams, Philip Glass, Bryce Dessner, Arvo
Pärt, Sofia Gubaidulina, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Kaija Saariaho. A
series of concerts focusing on Mozart's late works kicked off the
season, as well as Festival CDMX, featuring the music and artists
of Mexico. The Winter and Spring of 2018 pay tribute to the
100thbirthday of Leonard Bernstein, with performances
of Mass and Chichester
Psalms. The season also features a Schumann festival,
including a new production of Das Paradies und die
Peri, staged by Peter Sellars. In early
2018, the LA Phil also tours the United States and Europe.
Now in his 19th year as Music Director of the El Sistema project
in Venezuela, Dudamel remains committed to his vision that music
unites and transforms lives, and he advocates the combination of
music and the arts as essential to the education of young people
around the world. Dudamel's commitment to young people and music is
fuelled by his own transformative experience in El Sistema, a
program initiated by José Antonio Abreu in 1975. In addition to his
ongoing commitment to the children, teachers and
orchestras of El Sistema in Venezuela, Dudamel devotes much of his
time to education and programs promoting social change through art.
Dudamel has appeared at the United Nations and the White House to
raise awareness for the role of music education in social
development. Further afield, he has worked on numerous occasions
with El Sistema Japan and with the Sendai Youth Philharmonic in the
wake of the 2011 tsunami. He actively supports projects such as Big
Noise in Scotland, Vienna's Superar program, SerHacer in Boston,
and El Sistema Sweden, with whom he initiated an international
"Orchestra of the Future," comprising young people from five
continents, to perform on the occasion of the 2017 Nobel Prize
Concert.
Recordings, broadcasts and digital innovations are also
fundamental to Dudamel's passionate advocacy for universal access
to music. His discography includes landmark recordings of John
Adams' Gospel According to the Other Mary
(commissioned and performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic); the
sound track to the motion
picture Libertador, for which Dudamel also
composed the score; Mahler Symphonies 5 and 7 with the Simón
Bolívar Symphony Orchestra; and Mahler 9 with the Los Angeles
Philharmonic. A unique performance of Mahler's "Symphony of a
Thousand," featuring the combined forces of the LA Phil, the
Bolívars and over 1000 choristers and children from across
Venezuela, was captured for DVD/Blu-Ray and broadcast live to
cinemas in the US and Canada. A film documentary, Let
the Children Play, featuring Dudamel, was also shown in over
500 movie theaters nationwide. A special charity LP release of
Mendelssohn's "Scottish" Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic
raised funds for music education projects in Latin America, and
children from Vienna's El Sistema-inspired Superar program
participated in his most recent Deutsche Grammophon release of
Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, also with
the Vienna Philharmonic. Dudamel has independently produced an
all-Wagner recording available exclusively for download, a complete
set of Beethoven symphonies for digital learning, and a broadcast
of two Stravinsky ballets with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra
in cooperation with the Berlin Philharmonic's Digital Concert
Hall.
Gustavo Dudamel has been featured three times on
CBS's 60 Minutes and was subject of a PBS
special, Dudamel: Conducting a Life. He appeared
on Sesame Street with Elmo, with Charlie
Rose, Conan O'Brian, and on The Late Showwith
Stephen Colbert. Most recently, Gustavo had a cameo role in
Amazon Studio's award-winning series Mozart in the
Jungle, guest-conducted on the soundtrack
for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and, together
with members of YOLA, became the first classical musician to
participate in the Superbowl Half Time Show, appearing alongside
pop stars Coldplay, Beyoncé and Bruno Mars. In 2017, he was the
youngest-ever conductor to lead the Vienna Philharmonic's famous
New Year's Day Concert, watched annually by over 60 million people
in 90 countries.
Gustavo Dudamel is one of the most decorated conductors of his
generation. He received the Americas Society Cultural Achievement
Award in 2016, and the 2014 Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement
Award for the Elevation of Music in Society from the Longy School
of Music. He was named Musical America's 2013
Musician of the Year, one of the highest honors in the classical
music industry, and was voted into
the Gramophone Hall of Fame. In October of
2011, he was named Gramophone Artist of the
Year, and in May of the same year, was inducted into the Royal
Swedish Academy of Music in consideration of his "eminent merits in
the musical art." The previous year, he received the Eugene
McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT. Dudamel was inducted into
l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres as a Chevalier in Paris in 2009,
and received an honorary doctorate from the Universidad
Centroccidental Lisandro Alvarado in his hometown of Barquisimeto.
He also received an honorary doctorate from the University of
Gothenburg in 2012. In 2008, the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra was
awarded Spain's prestigious annual Prince of Asturias Award for the
Arts and, along with his mentor José Antonio Abreu, Dudamel was
given the "Q Prize" from Harvard University for extraordinary
service to children. He was named one
of Time Magazine's 100 most influential
people in 2009.
Gustavo Dudamel was born in 1981 in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. He
began violin lessons as a child with José Luis Jiménez and
Francisco Díaz at the Jacinto Lara Conservatory. He continued his
violin studies with Rubén Cova and José Francisco del Castillo at
the Latin American Academy of Violin. His conducting studies began
in 1993 when he was hired as an Assistant Conductor with the
Amadeus Chamber Orchestra. In 1996, he studied with Rodolfo
Saglimbeni and was named Music Director of the Amadeus Chamber
Orchestra. In 1999, he was appointed Music Director of the Simón
Bolívar Youth Orchestra and began conducting studies with the
orchestra's founder, Dr. Abreu. Dudamel was brought to
international attention by winning the inaugural Bamberger
Symphoniker Gustav Mahler Competition in 2004. He then went on to
become Music Director of the Gothenburg Symphony (2007-2012), where
he currently holds the title Honorary Conductor. Inspired by
Dudamel's early musical and mentoring experiences, the Gustavo
Dudamel Foundation, a registered charity, was created in 2012 with
the goal of promoting access to music as a human right and a
catalyst for learning, integration, and social change.
