The conductor Gustavo Dudamel came to Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009, and in the years since then, he and the orchestra have found renown when he got up to finally be both his musical and artistic director.
But things are changing, and after 17 years, Dudamel will leave the La Phil for the same roles at the New York Philharmonic at the end of the 2025-26 season of the Los Angeles Orchestra.
On Thursday, Dudamel sat down at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles to speak with Kim Noltemy, the president and chief executive officer of the Phil, about his plans for this 17th and last season, which begins in September. The La Phil has nicknamed the season “Gracias Gustavo”, but in Dudamel, the thanks are all to give it.
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“It’s an overwhelming moment, you know, to see all this trip, all this beautiful deep and wonderful trip,” said Dudamel from the scene of the BP room inside the orchestra home on Grand Avenue. “The privilege that I have during all these years to direct this wonderful orchestra?” I feel blessed. You know, I think it’s not ‘Gracias, Gustavo.
“This orchestra has embraced me since the very first time I came here to Los Angeles when I was a young driver’s animal,” he told the laughter of journalists and members of the Phil staff when he referred to the way some described in his early days.
And while Dudamel leaves the Phil, the Phil will remain a world class orchestra long after his departure, said Dudamel.
“I must say that we have created a wonderful artistic human environment to make beautiful music for Los Angeles,” he said. “It is the great thing of this institution. I came here in 2009 and people ask me: “What changed?” Or “What did you do?” Nothing. It was a natural path. We have created our own style, our own mission.
“I cannot take (credit) as an individual,” continued Dudamel. “It was a work of our team, the administration, the artistic team and the orchestra, which is on stage and plays all this wonderful music. So it’s something that will never end.
“We are closing a chapter and we open a new chapter. I think it is very important for art institutions to evolve and be flexible for new things. You know, we cannot be so selfish and say, as, okay, I am this one.
“It is beautiful to see that we are closing a chapter in such a beautiful state of our relationship,” said Dudamel. “He does not close a chapter because it no longer works. It works perfectly, and it is wonderful because in this case, it will be a beautiful path to the next person who will lead this orchestra. »»
During the last season, Dudamel will run 14 different podium programs in front of the orchestra, most of them on a handful of days and nights.
Its season opens in September with the world premiere of a work by the composer winner of the Pulitzer Ellen Reid Prize for the orchestra and the choir co-communized by the Phil and New York Philharmonic. He is twinned with “An Alpine Spring” by Richard Strauss.
In October, Dudamel will lead a pair of Stravinsky ballets, “The Firebird Suite” and “The Rite of Spring”, both closely associated, and associates them with the United States of “Frenzy” by John Adams, the Creative Chair of the Phil. Later in this month, he will direct the orchestra with the Master’s Master of Los Angeles in the second symphony of Mahler, and will also take the Philharmonic for a two -week tour of three countries in Seoul, Tokyo and Taipei and Tainan, Taiwan.
After a winter break, Dudamel returns in February for several programs focused on Beethoven, the one featuring his music for the play “Egmont” as well as pieces by Ricardo Lorenz and Robert Schumann, and the other his first time at the head of the most difficult to take towards the “Missa Solemnis” of Beethoven.
“This is an article that some conductors are afraid of doing because it has such a dimension,” said Dudamel about the work for the orchestra and the choir. “It goes beyond architecture, the technical part of music, which is enormous. Studying this score is fascinating. Whenever I open the score, I discover a new room in this magnificent building which is this room.
“Generally, the conductors wait for them to arrive at an age, an old age, especially, to do this room,” said the 44 -year -old conductor. “Because it’s like a unique sacred place.
“I think this play is a matter of faith,” he said. “It really makes me believe, you know, in this other dimension of grandeur and beauty that Beethoven was trying to put in this music. With this difficult, crazy score, you know, ask for singers, for the orchestra.
“I said:” Listen, at least I have gray hair “, said Dudamel laughing. “I’m eager to. I’m afraid. “
At the end of February in March, he first will make a Ballet partition commanded by the Phil, the “Revolución Dimanatina” by Gabriela Ortiz, written in response and support for the Mexican for women against violence in 2019. This also presents the world first of the ballet by the dance company Grupo Corpo. Then comes another Beethoven, his “pastoral” symphony, twinned with “Inferno” by Thomas Ades by Dante, another partition of ballet commanded, this one a Grammy winner in 2024 for the best orchestral performance.
March also sees the world premiere of a play commanded by the Phil by a variety of composers based in Los Angeles in the celebration of the fresco of Judy Baca “The Great Wall of Los Angeles”, which Dudamel described being blown away when his friend the director Alejandro González Iñárritu presented it.
“He said:” We are going to dinner, but I want to show you something very special that you will not believe that it is “” said Dudamel about Iñárritu, which contributes an original cinematographic component to work. “So we went to this city district, and we started walking in the street, then suddenly, we saw this mural with the whole history of Los Angeles. I said, “How, how is this beautiful thing there?”
“So we dreamed,” he said. “We were sitting there in the grass by looking at all these beautiful (images) that Judy Baca created with a wonderful group of young people with whom she worked. And we say we have to do something. We have to show it to the world. In Los Angeles too.
In May, Dudamel, director Alberto Arvelo and the architect Frank Gehry, who designed the emblematic Walt Disney Concert Hall, come together for “Die Walküre” by Wagner, with an elaborate production, Dudamel suggested going beyond what they created for “Das Rheingold” by Wagner, the first part of the Wagner ring.
“We are like the three Amigos,” he said about his loved ones with Arvelo and Gehry. “We have a little tequila, and I say:” it will be expensive. ” It will be very expensive. So something special happens next year.
Still in May, the cellist Star Yo-Yo Ma arrives with Dudamel for the world premiere of a new concerto by Puerto Rican composer Angélicca Negrón, and later this month, a combination of “Ein Heldenleben” by Strauss and a greater world premiere of the Lim philate commission by Puerto Ricano Roberto Sierra.
After a concertos evening on June 4, designed to present many soloists with Dudamel in the orchestra over the years, he ended his work at the Phil with “Gracias Gustavo: celebrating 17 years”, with works that honor his Venezuelan and American identities, and close this chapter of his career.
Asks by Noltemy what he hoped that the public would take this last season, Dudamel said that his hope was simple.
“Let them appreciate it,” he replied. And then came a flash of humor and charisma that made him so loved here.
“I hope I don’t do the concert and people say to themselves:” Why did he choose that? ” Come and suffer with the Phil! “Dudamel finished while he and the room burst out.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
