{"id":2423327,"date":"2026-05-19T14:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2423327"},"modified":"2026-05-19T14:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:00:10","slug":"dudamel-on-his-life-as-he-prepares-to-leave-l-a-phil-for-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/dudamel-on-his-life-as-he-prepares-to-leave-l-a-phil-for-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"Dudamel on his life as he prepares to leave L.A. Phil for New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On the second weekend of May, Gustavo Dudamel gave the New York Philharmonic a salsa shock<\/a>. He gleefully brought the startled players together with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, an uptown salsa and jazz band, for concerts at Lincoln Center and Washington Heights. The city\u2018s classical music fans treated it as a cultural breakthrough; Dudamel is expected to transform the orchestra as a cultural institution when he returns in the fall as its music and artistic director.<\/p>\n

A day later he was back in Los Angeles to begin rehearsals at a Walt Disney Concert Hall that had been fantastically transformed by Frank Gehry for the Los Angeles Philharmonic\u2019s staging of \u201cDie Walk\u00fcre.\u201d<\/a> Transformation \u2014 be it cultural, orchestral, personal \u2014 has marked Dudamel\u2019s 17 years as music (and more recently artistic) director of the L.A. Phil, which is now coming to an end with his three weeks of concerts in Disney to close the season June 7, followed by a celebratory weekend at the Hollywood Bowl in late August. <\/p>\n

But meeting with Dudamel in his dressing room after a \u201cWalk\u00fcre\u201d rehearsal (the opera begins Tuesday night at Disney and runs for six nights, an act a night, the full opera performed twice) , he says as he has said before, he does not think of this as a culmination, merely the beginning of a new adventure. He\u2019s apartment shopping in New York. But he is keeping his house in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also departing with two very long new titles as \u201cDie Walk\u00fcre\u201d premieres: the Diane and M. David Paul Artistic Cultural Laureate of the L.A. Phil and Jane and Michael Eisner Founding Director and Conductor Laureate of Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA). <\/p>\n

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<\/picture>\n
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Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a performance of Beethoven\u2019s Missa Solemnis at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Feb. 22.<\/p>\n

(David Butow \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

\u201cWe are talking about projects,\u201d he says. \u201cLook, I\u2019m coming back for two weeks in December,\u201d when he will lead Beethoven programs. He returns in the spring. The Bowl will always be a second home. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m living here and I\u2019m not living here,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe connection will always be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The energy in New York is, he continues, \u201csuper exciting.\u201d And what excites him the most is how comfortable he feels with the very real differences between L.A. and New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a Latino from Venezuela,\u201d he says, \u201cI have an immediate connection with the New York that is home of salsa. When I was in the womb I was hearing salsa.\u201d His father, Oscar Dudamel, is a trombonist and salsa musician.<\/p>\n

But he adds that mariachi, ubiquitous in Mexico and L.A., is also an integral part of Venezuelan culture. \u201cWhat I have to say is that I am blessed. I\u2019m blessed that both cities are now part of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bringing \u2018crazy\u2019 ideas to Los Angeles<\/h2>\n

L.A., of course, has been the<\/i> major part of his adult life. At 24, an unknown, he made his dazzling U.S. debut<\/a> in 2005 leading the L.A. Phil at the Hollywood Bowl. Four years later, he became the orchestra\u2019s music director and caught the world\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that Dudamel\u2019s extraordinary talents would have meant a major career wherever he landed. But, here, he inherited the world\u2019s most culturally open major orchestra, where fresh thinking and new music thrive. Disney Hall allowed him the extraordinary freedom to dream. Being back at Disney, Dudamel admits, is very emotional, especially conducting \u201cWalk\u00fcre\u201d with Gehry\u2019s sets of billowy, sumptuous clouds and fanciful white papery horses.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrank is here with us,\u201d Dudamel exclaims about the architect, who died in December and with whom he had become close. Conducting Wagner\u2019s opera, in many ways, sums up Dudamel\u2019s ambitions, the way he has connected with more sides of L.A.\u2019s cultural landscape than possibly any other artist.<\/p>\n

In L.A., Dudamel grew as an artist and a person, he says, through his relationship with an orchestra that is uniquely flexible and a welcoming community. This allowed Dudamel to be what he likes to call \u201ccrazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the first time I came here. I didn\u2019t have a chance to do or see anything,\u201d he says of his Bowl debut. \u201cSo, I remember driving from the airport to Sunset Boulevard, where my hotel was, and I didn\u2019t understand anything. But immediately it was the connection with the orchestra.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Singers <\/picture>\n
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Frank Gehry designed the sets for a Jan. 18, 2024, performance of Wagner\u2019s opera, \u201cDas Rheingold,\u201d with Gustavo Dudamel leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Flash forward 20 years from 2005 to 2025. In what seemed like a truly crazy idea, he brought the L.A. Phil to the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, where he led a varied set of classical favorites and appearances with pop stars, for 150,000 people shouting \u201cL.A. Phil! L.A Phil.\u201d Among the highlights was \u201cRide of the Valkyries,\u201d the English title of \u201cWalk\u00fcre.\u201d<\/p>\n

The symbolism of doing \u201cWalk\u00fcre\u201d is, for Dudamel, unmistakable. Wagner\u2019s four-part \u201cRing\u201d cycle, of which \u201cDie Walk\u00fcre\u201d is the second opera, strongly influenced the \u201cStar Wars\u201d films Dudamel grew up with. The saga\u2019s composer John Williams is another L.A. legend who became for Dudamel like family. Williams has, in fact, written a fanfare, \u201cBravo Gustavo!\u201d that Dudamel will premiere on June 4 in a concert in which he celebrates the musicians of the L.A. Phil.<\/p>\n

The \u201cWalk\u00fcre\u201d production, moreover, further expresses his desire to remain connected with L.A. When asked whether he still plans to complete the \u201cRing\u201d cycle with the L.A. Phil, which he began two seasons ago with \u201cDas Rheingold,\u201d<\/a> he says, \u201ccompletely.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a radical notion, to say nothing of an extraordinarily expensive and time-consuming challenge for any orchestra given to a former music director, but Dudamel has never been one to take no for an answer. \u201cAt my last conversation with Frank,\u201d he recalls, \u201cI said I was coming to talk about \u2018Siegfried\u2019 [the next opera in the cycle], and he said, \u2018You are crazy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was Frank. He freaked out about the operas every time I talked to him about them. And then he came up with fabulous ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know I never dreamed about coming to the L.A. Phil. I was happy in Venezuela and guest conducting elsewhere. But when I met Frank and John [Williams], I knew I had come to the right place.\u201d<\/p>\n

One reason Dudamel was happy in Venezuela was his position as music director of the Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar Youth Orchestra, part of El Sistema, the country\u2019s famed music education program. He brought a version of that to Los Angeles with YOLA, which offers free musical education to students. Bringing young people together to learn \u2014 and not just to play music but to listen to each other \u2014 has grown increasingly essential to him. <\/p>\n

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\"Gustavo <\/picture>\n
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Gustavo Dudamel has fun with John Williams at the Hollywood Bowl as he conducts the L.A. Phil during \u201cMaestro of the Movies: John Williams with the LA Phil\u201d on July 9, 2023. <\/p>\n

(Emil Ravelo \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

On Thursday evening, USC awarded Dudamel an honorary doctorate during its graduation ceremonies at the Coliseum, where Dudamel also gave the commencement speech. <\/p>\n

\u201cI will never tire of repeating this: music, art and beauty are universal rights,\u201d he told the graduates, urging them to go out into the world listening to others, seeing others, paying attention to everything. These are the practices he has long championed as the essential need for youth orchestras.<\/p>\n

This was, in fact, almost precisely what he said when he first arrived in L.A. \u201cI was very young, but I grew up with these ideas,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to say to the students, \u2018Stop! Let\u2019s pause. Just listen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a way to really connect with what surrounds you, but also connect with yourself. That\u2019s the beauty of all the layers of listening we do as musicians. I now think that is our main tool. In the end it\u2019s not listening only to sounds. It\u2019s listening as connecting with others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Practicing what he preaches<\/h2>\n

As Dudamel plans for his next chapter, he indicates that the advice he gives students is what he is also saying to himself.<\/p>\n

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\"Children, <\/picture>\n
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YOLA students perform on stage during a \u201cGracias Gustavo Community Block Party\u201d at the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center in Inglewood on Oct. 11, 2025.<\/p>\n

(Etienne Laurent \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

What L.A. gave him, he concludes, is a greater depth of his own listening. There was the guidance of Deborah Borda, who, as the orchestra\u2019s president and CEO, hired and mentored him. There were the opera productions with Peter Sellars, who made him look deeply inside himself. There were the communities to discover and with which to collaborate.<\/p>\n

New York, he insists, will be a further continuation of this process. \u201cThere are a lot of things to do. As I did here, that will be not only conducting but spending a big amount of time doing other things. I will have to listen to the community. Every place is different.\u201d<\/p>\n

And every place needs to be, for Dudamel, connected. He began his last season in Disney in the fall with the world premiere of Ellen Reid\u2019s \u201cEarth Between Oceans,\u201d<\/a> a bicoastal co-commission between the L.A. Phil and the New York Philharmonic, sonically evoking the environmental difference between L.A. and New York. He recently repeated it with his new orchestra in David Geffen Hall in New York.<\/p>\n

In L.A., Reid\u2019s score felt like a vast, moving, spiritual soundscape of our fires\u2019 fury as well as our coastal fancy. At Geffen, it became a gripping showpiece, like attempting to zoom in a Ferrari through Manhattan streets, were they ever empty \u2014 the thrill of taking it all in.<\/p>\n

Dudamel says his favorite place in New York so far is the orchestra\u2019s archives. Becoming absorbed in the history of America\u2019s oldest orchestra gives him new ideas. He wants simultaneously the old, the new and the many.<\/p>\n

He also insists on ever more connections. \u201dWe are making, many, many projects together,\u201d he says of the L.A. Phil and the New York Philharmonic. That includes bringing the two orchestras together in a further experiment in listening.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2018s very important to me, one of my dreams. And it\u2019s not difficult,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have plans and it\u2019s beautiful. We have to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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