Gustavo Dudamel, the biggest star of the Hollywood Bowl, gets one of his – Variety



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The recent and upcoming program of conductor Gustavo Dudamel is enough for everyone to feel like a serious underachiever.

In the past 12 months, Dudamel has guided the Los Angeles Philharmonic for half of his 100th season. debuted with the Metropolitan Opera in New York; started a series of lectures / seminars underway at Princeton University; has toured the world with several orchestras and – not least on his list – has released the last of his more than two dozen albums. This year, he will publish at least four other records and, before the summer, appear on the Oscars broadcast; end the centenary of L.A. Phil with the beginning of a new work by John Adams and two or three symphonies by Mahler; and driving in Asia, Europe and Boston.

On January 22, four days before his 38th birthday, he will receive a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame in front of the Musicians Institute on Hollywood Boulevard.

Suggest that the presto tempo he is working on is superhuman, and he will only laugh. "I feel like a child," he says, as he was going to receive the Paez Art Medal from the Venezuelan Fund for the Arts in December, a few days after having enthusiastically interpreted "Otello From Verdi to the Met. "I think it's part of the dynamics of my life. J & # 39; appreciates. "

In just a decade, Dudamel has become the rare and widely recognized face of clbadical music. He has been in California since the age of 28. He took over from Esa-Pekka Salonen as Music Director of LA Phil in 2009 and added the title of Artistic Director in 2015. Dudamel came from his home country, Venezuela, where he directed the company. Simon Bolivar Orchestra. his youth education plan, El Sistema. The media can not get enough of it: the New York Times was delighted at a time when it saw no reason to rent anything from southern California, and even "60 Minutes" had shaped it – to three times.

"I think the fact that he gets a star is very appropriate because he does not look like most of the stars of clbadical music," says violinist Martin Chalifour, L.A. Phil's violin soloist. "He is much more humble and more able to communicate than what we do is very natural and comes from the heart. The kind of music he likes to program is accessible to everyone, and we think he is an excellent spokesperson for clbadical music. He deserves this star. "

Simon Woods, President and CEO of the Los Angeles Philharmonic over the past year, adds, "He has something unique that you can not learn or buy. It's this very special charisma – a kind of aura around him. The music … is not motivated by the ego. It's really motivated by a deep love for music and the desire to communicate the music as richly as possible to the widest possible audience. "

If Los Angeles has an unlimited number of stars, there are only a few of them who are identified as true local heroes and able to unite the city ​​beyond 30 miles (30 miles) between the edges of the valley and the South Bay. Yet with a stick in his hand, Dudamel is a combination of Magic Johnson, Fernando Valenzuela and George Clooney. Although the names of the clbadic downtown chefs are well known – Salonen, André Previn and Zubin Mehta, plus Placido Domingo at LA Opera – no one has become a face for the whole city, an individual who represents more than his discipline .

"He can walk down the street and he's a celebrity," said Graham Parker, president of the clbadics division of Universal Music, which includes the label under which Dudamel is signed, Deutsche Grammophon. "It's a very exciting thing for clbadical music, that a person is recognized outside of the clbadical world. He has the ability to communicate with the public of Phil and the Spanish-speaking community and to obtain great respect from the artistic community. He has this complete package. "

Dudamel debuted as an American director at the Hollywood Bowl in 2005, and a year and a half later made his debut at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with a program by Rachmaninoff, Kodály, and Bartók. To see him conduct the rehearsal for Bartók's orchestral concerto, Chalifour recalls, was a "revelation – he seemed to be showing us a new way of making music. It was a room we had not known well for a few years and he immediately took it in another direction.

Salonen, musical director from 1992 to 2009, pushed L.A. Phil to the heights of American symphony orchestras. He did it through programming and, as Chalifour says, with emphasis on accuracy and pace. When Chalifour took over, Dudamel said they were "very tough" when they played Dudamel's specialties: excerpts from Mozart, Beethoven and opera.

"Flexibility has become a trademark and a goal of Gustavo. It is more a matter of finesse of style, of finishing sentences with more finesse and – this occurs naturally during the life of an orchestra – with personality. "

Born in 1981 in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, Dudamel began studying violin at the age of 10. He began directing in 1996 and earned his first musical director position with the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra. Since 1999, he has been musical director of the Bolívar Youth Orchestra in Venezuela. Prior to his debut at Disney Hall, he conducted guest orchestras throughout Europe and conducted singing orchestras for Donizetti 's "elisir d' amore" in Berlin. Mozart Opera and Don Giovanni in La Scala.

It was in 2004 when Salonen saw his successor for the first time. He was part of the jury of the orchestra conducting competition led by Gustav Mahler in Bamberg, won by Dudamel, and Salonen warned Deborah Borda, CEO of L.A. Phil, that Dudamel was the real deal.

Dudamel's introduction fits well with Borda's vision for the whole thing. "I think it goes back to the opening of Walt Disney Concert Hall," she told "60 minutes" in 2008. "We did not just take our programs and move. We have reinvented what could be the Philharmonic and embraced a richer musical spectrum. L.A. is a contemporary city and our goal is to maintain a focus similar to that of the laser on the art and artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. "

When he was recruited, Dudamel was immediately impressed by what he had seen: "Possibilities," he says, complimenting Phil's musicians for their openness to new ideas. "I saw a house where we can build more rooms. There was room to make this house even more beautiful and more meaningful for people. For me, that's what L.A. Phil m has shown as a way to seduce me.

"In addition, the city is a city with a tradition for new things. L.A. builds things all the time in cultural life. People may think it's artificial, but it's not like that. It is an artistic and cultural city. We create programming, art and connect with the community. I think that an orchestra is the face of the cultural life of a city. "

To celebrate the centenary, L.A. Phil was extremely aware of his role in the city. The opening night celebrated Phil's story with a bit of A to Z (from John Adams to Frank Zappa); the orchestra participated in the concert Celebrate L.A.! street party in September; and, when the season ends, will have executed 50 pieces ordered.

When Dudamel returns to Los Angeles this month, the Phil will turn to Hollywood, especially John Williams' work for several concerts. Dudamel, whose film credits include "The Liberator" by Alberto Alvero in 2013 and directs the Philharmonia Orchestra in London last year for "The Nutcracker and the Four Kingdoms" Disney considers Williams as his "Artistic father, member of our family, part of our family. identity."

Deutsche Grammophon will record the concerts and hope to use the Oscar appearance to reinforce his interest in Dudamel.

The film in general, notes Dudamel, "is something that I have grown to admire. To arrive in Latin America and let ourselves be embraced by the world of cinema was something wonderful. That the Academy pays tribute to the Philharmonic is an honor … and a bridge to creating powerful bonds for the community. "

The El Salvador Youth Orchestra (YOLA) based on El Sistema, which Borda helped launch shortly after her arrival, is at the heart of Dudamel's community development projects. The current CEO, Woods, has entrusted Borda and his two masters with the creation of "the most dynamic and forward-looking orchestra, both for its programming and its way of conceiving the relevance for different audiences and for reflect the world around us. "

As for Dudamel, "his humanity is the basis of who we are," suggests Woods. "He is the key to this mission of the inspiring role that music plays in people's lives. When we look at the work we do in the organization by reaching out to different communities, that really reflects their vision. "

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