Gustavo Dudamel on 60 Minutes
February 27th, 2008
Here is an interesting video on the young conducting sensation Gustavo Dudamel on 60 Minutes. Maestro Dudamel has been taking the classical music scene by storm in recent years. At only 27 years of age, he been appointed music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic which will effectively start in the 2009-2010 season . Before his appointment in L.A., many American orchestras were going after him including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He is currently Principal Conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and is in his ninth year as Music Director of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra in Venezuela. He has many debuts in the 2007-2008 season including the Vienna Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic and the Berlin Stattsoper.
Gustavo burst onto the global music scene when he won the Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition in 2004. Up until then, he was relatively unknown outside of his native Venezuela. He has garnered a great deal of press coverage in the past couple of years. To read an excellent article about him in the New York Times magazine click here. He has also been featured in Time and Newsweek.
It is very exciting to think about the potential and future of this great talent. I think he is filling a void that has been present in the classical music field for some time now. There has been a lull in the quest to find the next great conductor. A handful of orchestras have been going entire seasons without having a music director and even experimenting with having multiple conductors. There is always the case when orchestras have a music director and they collectively don’t like him/her. Given the current state of classical music looking for leaders and vision in the 21st century, Dudamel fits the bill perfectly. He has the charisma and personality that if marketed properly, could make his orchestras a total sensation. He will make classical music concerts extremely exciting. This will be infectious to the public at large. Instead of orchestra concerts being the same mundane thing, he will bring an energy that the audience can feed on. This is what music is all about, stirring emotions and feeling better than when you entered the concert hall. I look forward very much to the day I can play under his baton.
You can also visit his own website at www.GustavoDudamel.com.
Entry Filed under: Conductors
1 Comment Add your own
1. Bill Grossman | June 20th, 2008 at 10:56 am
You mentioned Gustavo Dudamel as a hope for the future of classical music. Personally, I can\’t get on the Dudamel bandwagon, for the simple reason that, apart from his \”charisma,\” his musical values have yet to be displayed. Your web site goes on to mention Carlos Kleiber, a conductor who had great musical depth, along with an appropriate amount of podium display. The contrast is evident to me.\r\n \r\nI fear that conducting is viewed more and more as a ballet, with the actual musical result of much less importance. This is very bad for the music. I have seen dozens of young conductors who look and gesture like Dudamel: I think the only difference between them and him is that they haven\’t secured high-powered management (which is really the power behind the scenes in too many instances). And I can think offhand of a number of conductors on the scene today with proven musical maturity and depth, who are at least as deserving musically as Dudamel of a major appointment.
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