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Los Angeles Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Dr. Gustavo Dudamel leads the New York Philharmonic, with L.A. style
New York — After triumphantly bringing the Los Angeles Philharmonic to Coachella, Gustavo Dudamel is taking his biggest bite so far out of the Big Apple. He is in town for a three-week New York Philharmonic residency. He has devised two ambitious programs to close the orchestra's season in David Geffen Hall and will then be the big attraction for thousands of New York picnickers at free New York Philharmonic parks concerts throughout the boroughs. In the meantime, Dr. Dudamel picked up an honorary doctorate Saturday from the Juilliard School. A welcome mat doesn't get more welcoming than that for a conductor, and this is someone who has yet no official title with the orchestra. The three main 'People of the New York Philharmonic' featured on the orchestra's website are pianist Yuja Wang (artist in residence), Matías Tarnopolsky (newly appointed president and chief executive) and Alec Baldwin (radio series host). In September, Dudamel becomes music and artistic director designate. A year later, having completed 17 seasons as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he takes charge of the country's oldest and most celebrated orchestra. But who's counting days, months or years? From the moment Dudamel walked on stage at Geffen Hall to begin the dress rehearsal of his first concert of the series last week, there could be no question that it's his show. The orchestra has become fully Dudamel-branded, his image plastered everywhere you look. The talk of the town is that a music-director-designate-to-be has already transformed one of the world's great orchestras, which is said to be playing at a new level and with a new sound. New Yorkers still take pride in not being easily hoodwinked. The press glorifies Dudamel as the next Leonard Bernstein one minute and looks for flaws anywhere it can find them the next. But there is something in the air that even an outsider could feel at the rehearsal, which was open to donors and press interlopers. Dudamel simply seemed, without ostensibly trying, to belong. He knew exactly what to do and how to do it. When he asked the players for something, an orchestra famed for being difficult responded instantly. But Dudamel was doubtlessly trying to belong. The program, composed of nothing he has performed elsewhere, was meant to be a tribute to the New York Philharmonic. He began by pairing the first work the 183-year-old orchestra had ever commissioned with a premiere of a startling new commission. After intermission, he introduced the largest and most robust of the recent symphonies by the city's best-known composer, a veritable icon — Philip Glass — to an orchestra that had done its best to ignore for half a century. With orchestra and audience in his hands, Dudamel had yet another triumph. The New York Times called this program a love letter to New York. If so, the love letter had a postmark from L.A. Stravinsky composed his Symphony in Three Movements, written during and reflecting World War II, while he lived in West Hollywood. Like Schoenberg before him, the Russian émigré composer tried but failed to get a lucrative contract scoring a Hollywood film. Instead, Stravinsky reused bits he had meant for the 1943 epic 'The Song of Bernadette' in his war symphony. The newly commissioned work that followed was Kate Soper's 'Orpheus Orchestra Opus Onus,' a sensationally witty and profound monodrama about the meaning of music for amplified soprano and large orchestra. Soper herself was the talented soloist, as she had been a few weeks earlier when she appeared at the L.A. Phil's Green Umbrella concert in a far riskier early work, 'Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say.' A favorite of operatic progressives, Soper has had three operas staged by Long Beach Opera, including the premiere of her astonishingly fanciful 'Romance of the Rose,' perhaps the most original American opera of the decade. When it came to breaking the New York Philharmonic's Glass ceiling, Dudamel brought an L.A. Phil hammer. The first concert work by Glass that the New York Philharmonic ever performed was Concerto for Two Pianos in 2017, conducted by Dudamel's predecessor, Jaap van Zweden. It was Dudamel, however, who had given the premiere of the concerto and the L.A. Phil that commissioned it. Dudamel's performance of Symphony No. 11 thus became the first New York Philharmonic attempt at a Glass symphony. (He's written 15, and the L.A. Phil commissioned the 12th.) The 11th has everything audiences and orchestra players are said to dread. It is long (40 minutes), orchestrally big-boned in the manner of Bruckner and echt-Glass in its repetitions and romantic effusions. But in an act of remarkable conductorial persuasion, Dudamel emphasized Glass' talent for orchestral go-with-the-flow magnificence to blow the audience away. The crowd stood en mass and cheered the frail 88-year-old composer seated on the first tier. For all that, the performances were nonetheless on the stiff side, the famously virtuosic orchestra effortfully coming to terms with the unfamiliar. But the needle has moved. What felt unfamiliar was a general feeling of acceptance in Geffen Hall. The audience-friendly renovation during the pandemic helps with a powerful acoustic that encourages openness. This is no longer the uptight atmosphere where John Adams was angrily booed and where people noisily walked out as Zubin Mehta premiered major new works by Olivier Messiaen and Iannis Xenakis. The New York Philharmonic, moreover, has many younger players. And Geffen Hall has found novel means of reaching new audiences, particularly with its large video screens in the lobby, where every concert is streamed for free for passersby or those who want to take in the whole event. The video work is the most creative I've encountered. The sound system is not high-end and there are plenty of distractions. But I watched a matinee and found the experience compelling and the sound good enough to tell that by the second performance of the program, the orchestra had already gotten tighter. All this bodes well for Dudamel, who now has the West Coast support team he wanted. Deborah Borda, who hired Dudamel at the L.A. Phil and poached him at the New York Philharmonic, remains as an adviser to the orchestra. When Tarnopolsky ran Cal Performances at UC Berkeley, he became close to Dudamel. Adam Crane, the orchestra's vice president of external affairs, worked under Borda in L.A. when Dudamel made his U.S. debut at the Hollywood Bowl and was hired by the L.A. Phil. It is too soon to tell where this may lead. By now New Yorkers should know that Dudamel will not be the next Bernstein. He may well change New York, but he is not likely to be a New Yorker. Bernstein lived in New York, walking distance from Carnegie Hall and, when it was built, Lincoln Center. Bernstein raised his family at the Dakota and was, day and night, at the center of New York cultural, intellectual and political life. Dudamel says he still thinks of L.A. as home and the L.A. Phil as family. The New York Philharmonic is a new family. But Dudamel, in fact, now lives in Madrid and has Spanish citizenship. Yet for whatever reason, an L.A. mindset does seem to have reached the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center. The orchestra follows Dudamel's appearances with 'Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back' in concert and then heads off on an Asian tour with conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. L.A. opera directors Yuval Sharon and Peter Sellars, nowhere to be found in L.A. at the moment, are prominent at the Lincoln Center. Sharon's production of 'The Comet/Poppea' he created for the Industry in L.A. last year will have its New York premiere here in June. Sellars' collaboration with composer Matthew Aucoin, 'Music for New Bodies,' is in July.
Los Angeles Times
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
How did Gustavo Dudamel end his L.A. Phil season? By saving the best for last
Gustavo Dudamel's 16th and penultimate winter season with the Los Angeles Philharmonic has not been quite as ambitious as others. No big opera. Two full symphonies in his 'Mahler Grooves' festival, unlike his unprecedented full nine-symphony Mahler festival in 2012. Over the next five-plus months, Dudamel's only appearances here will be two weeks in August at the Hollywood Bowl. Has the grand exit from L.A. begun? On the surface, it might appear that way. Between now and the beginning of his final L.A. Phil season in late September, Dudamel has newsworthy gigs elsewhere. In his runup to becoming New York Philharmonic music director in 2026, he closes that orchestra's 2024-25 season next month in Lincoln Center, launches its summer series in Central Park and opens its new season in September. He has upcoming tours leading the London Symphony in Spain and the Berlin Philharmonic at the World's Fair, Expo 2025, in Osaka, Japan. This summer Dudamel conducts 'West Side Story' in Barcelona with a starry cast that includes Nadine Sierra, Juan Diego Flórez and Isabel Leonard. But not so fast. Dudamel made bigger and better news with the Los Angeles Philharmonic last weekend. Friday night he premiered Carlos Simon's stirring, gospel-inspired 'Good News Mass,' creating a near frenzy in Walt Disney Concert Hall. The next day the L.A. Phil hopped on a bus for the second of its trailblazing appearances with Dudamel at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, where the week before its concert ended with thousands of fans chanting, 'L.A. Phil! L.A. Phil! L.A. Phil!' Dudamel's mission all along has been to leap genre boundaries. So he has. 'Maybe these have been the best weekends of our lives,' he told the Outdoor Theater crowd at Saturday night's Coachella love-fest. The top orchestras in Berlin, Vienna, New York, Munich and elsewhere play popular concerts in parks, often awaking new audiences to their wares. But this felt a historic reach, the L.A. Phil having become under Dudamel an essential part of L.A. culture in a broader sense. It will be difficult to top, however successful Dudamel becomes in his efforts to spread the word that some 300 years after Elector Karl Theodor hired 90 musicians to form an ensemble for his court in Mannheim, Germany, the orchestra still matters. Good news, however, remains seemingly in short supply at many struggling American orchestras, just as it does in many uncertain aspects of American life. Simon — who happens to be composer-in-residence at the newly troubled Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. — noted in a preconcert talk that his initial idea for a 'Good News Mass' came from his awareness during the pandemic of the essential need for community. The L.A. Phil told him that he could write anything he wanted and for any instrumental and vocal forces he wanted as long as he kept the length to 30 minutes. Telling composers that they can think big inevitably means they will think even bigger. 'Good News Mass' incorporates a very large orchestra, a jazz combo, a narrator, R&B and gospel soloists, a gospel choir and a film. It lasts nearly 50 minutes. It is all over the map. Simon partially follows the traditional Catholic mass liturgy with new texts by Courtney Ware Lett and Marc Bamuthi Joseph that work through doubt and oppression, ultimately celebrating life. Bamuthi Joseph leads the service as a ferocious prophetic preacher. The soloists, alto Samoht and tenor Zebulon Ellis, rock the room. Jason White and the Samples become the collective voices of affirmation. Stylistically, Simon smoothly moves from charismatic symphonic writing through a wide range of African American musical styles, leaving improvisational room for the vocal soloists. But the film by Melina Matsoukas, beautifully stark slow-motion street scenes in black-and-white, steals attention to little musical purpose and makes following the meaningful mass itself (no text is projected) needlessly difficult. 'Good News Mass,' which seems inspired by Leonard Bernstein's eclectic 'Mass,' written for the opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971, could, like it, effectively expand its presentation theatrically and choreographically rather than cinematically. And the good news is that Simon's mass will, indeed, be performed at the Kennedy Center by the National Symphony, assuming there are no further attempts to undo programming by the center's new administration. The Boston Symphony and Chicago Symphony are additional co-commissioners. Dudamel, who joyfully held Simon's diverse musical styles together, began the program with Bernstein's 'Divertimento,' a collection of short, popular-styled bagatelles, including dances and blues numbers. It may be generally dismissed as trivial, but Bernstein conducted it with characterful nostalgia and Dudamel has found in it vibrant new spirit. He followed this with the first L.A. Phil performance of Florence Price's Violin Concerto No. 2, with Randall Goosby as the eloquent soloist. In this, her final score, written in 1951, she moves into a more impressionistic realm in the short, single-movement concerto. Here it felt more like a beginning than an ending. At Coachella, everything felt like a beginning. Dudamel led TikTok-sized bits of orchestral bonbons — 'The Ride of the Valkyries,' the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, John Williams' 'Imperial March' and the opening of Strauss' 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' — each generating excited whoops from the crowd. So did principal cellist Robert deMaine's solo offering from the prelude to Bach Cello Suite No. 1 and associate concertmaster Bing Wang's solo from the beginning of the Max Richter arrangement of 'Spring' from Vivaldi's 'The Four Seasons.' Both weekends, as witnessed on the livestreams, featured Icelandic singer Laufey, who called herself an orchestra girl, and the spectacular Argentine hip-hop duo Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso, who entered into a virtuoso dialogue with the orchestra. Maren Morris, Becky G and Zedd were on hand the first weekend along with LL Cool J, who closed out the set with an arresting medley. The festival's second weekend brought Natasha Bedingfield, Dave Grohl and Cynthia Erivo, who ended with 'Purple Rain.' It might seem as though this were but the next step for Dudamel, who regularly invites pop stars to join him and the L.A. Phil at Disney Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. He's taken the L.A. Phil and YOLA to the Super Bowl. But in most cases, they have been more like orchestral accompaniment. Many a pop star, moreover, has turned to orchestral writing lately. Esa-Pekka Salonen, for instance, conducts a violin concerto by Bryce Dessner of the Nationals next week with the L.A. Phil. Coachella, on the other hand, not only put the L.A. Phil front and center in a pop arena but also made the orchestra an equal partner in exhilarating music that discounted differences. For an hour each weekend, the L.A. Phil became what few others in the arts or entertainment remain — conveyors of authentically good news.
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dave Grohl Performs 'Everlong' with LA Philharmonic at Coachella
The post Dave Grohl Performs 'Everlong' with LA Philharmonic at Coachella appeared first on Consequence. Dave Grohl made a surprise appearance during weekend two of Coachella, joining Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic to perform renditions of Foo Fighters' 'The Sky Is a Neighborhood' and 'Everlong.' The set also featured guest appearances from Cynthia Erivo, who covered Prince's 'Purple Rain,' Laufey, Natasha Bedingfield, and Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the Venezuelan-born Dudamel called Coachella a 'dream' gig, adding that it 'represents a journey of making music accessible to everybody, but also creating a culture where people don't feel that classical music is far away, not part of their lives.' It also marked the culmination of Dudamel's 17-year tenure as conductor of the LA Phil, as he'll be departing to lead the New York Philharmonic next year. As for Grohl, his appearance with the LA Phil marked his first time performing Foo Fighters songs since August 2024. Editor's Note: Head here for more coverage of Coachella 2025. Dave's Full Set at Coachella 2025 byu/fftamahawk009 inFoofighters Popular Posts The 100 Best Guitarists of All Time New Pornographers Drummer Joseph Seiders Charged with Child Pornography Reggie Watts Bummed Out by Coachella: "[Its] Soul Feels Increasingly Absent" Haley Joel Osment Arrested for Public Intoxication At Ski Resort 4chan Likely Gone Forever After Hackers Take Control Lady Gaga Battles Tech Issues at Coachella: "At Least You Know I Sing Live" Subscribe to Consequence's email digest and get the latest breaking news in music, film, and television, tour updates, access to exclusive giveaways, and more straight to your inbox.
Jordan Times
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Jordan Times
Gustavo Dudamel: The superstar conductor building bridges to pop
INDIO, United States — As the full moon rose, conductor Gustavo Dudamel's signature theatrics were projected with a front-facing view to a spellbound audience, his baton whipping his orchestra into Richard Wagner's legendary "Ride of The Valkyries". It was perhaps an unlikely spectacle at Coachella, but one that generated a huge, enthusiastic crowd -- and was befitting of a maestro who has become a bona fide celebrity. "WERK!" shouted one young audience member at Dudamel, as he and the Los Angeles Philharmonic began what was seen as one of the festival's most memorable performances. Under Dudamel's direction for the past 17 years, the LA Phil has cultivated an air of cool, fostering a relationship with pop and celebrity especially during the ensemble's summer series at the Hollywood Bowl. So it was only natural that the 44-year-old take his act to California's Coachella, one of the world's highest-profile music festivals that in recent years has gained a reputation for buzzy surprises and eclectic line-ups. The orchestra delivered, launching into a mesmerizing set that included classics like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, film themes like John Williams' "Imperial March" from "Star Wars," and a genre-spanning array of guests including country star Maren Morris, Icelandic jazz-pop singer Laufey, LA's own Becky G and EDM DJ Zedd. The grand finale saw Dudamel's baton conjure bars from one LL Cool J, a genre-blending pas de deux that mirrored a rap battle. "This place represents a culture," Dudamel said of the festival in a backstage interview with AFP, ahead of his and the Phil's first performance, which they will reprise on Saturday during Coachella's final weekend. "This is what I believe is the mission of art, this identity," he explained. "The identity of a new generation, hungry for beauty." 'Catharsis' Over the years, some observers have marveled over -- or criticised -- Dudamel's ties with Hollywood and his efforts to unite the classical world with music of the Hot 100 variety. But for the conductor -- whose talent was shaped by Venezuela's illustrious "El Sistema" musical education programme -- working across genre is "the most natural thing," he said. In his youth, "my father had a salsa band, and I grew up listening to that and going to the orchestra, and it was always very natural to just enjoy music -- whatever it was, a bolero, a rock band", Dudamel recalled. "There are different styles of music, but music is one." Johanna Rees, the vice president of presentations at the LA Phil, one of the most prestigious orchestras in the United States, says cross-genre collaborations are in part about drawing in fresh audience members. "It could be considered an entry point," she said, "exposing the orchestra to these younger, newer audiences so they can come back and check out more things and discover orchestral concerts on their own." A lot of audience members at Coachella, she predicted, were "seeing an orchestra for the very first time." "It's quite awesome, in the most literal sense of that word, to see how everybody can come together and make this music completely without the genre." Some in the classical music world have balked at this notion, considering it a dilution, or cheapening, of the art form. But such criticism misses the expansive possibilities ingrained in the process of collaboration, Rees said: "We're not creating orchestral wallpaper behind a band." "It's hearing the music in a different way. It's not dumbing it down," she added. "It's just making it another version of itself." The prime sunset slot at Coachella serves as a capstone ushering in Dudamel's final year of his nearly two-decade run in Los Angeles -- the product of "years of dreaming, and breaking walls, and connecting more not only with styles of music but with different people's identities," he said. It's an ethos the maestro aims to bring to the eminent New York Philharmonic when he officially assumes his post as that company's next director in the 2026-27 season. And it's vital, he said, in a moment of boiling political turmoil. "We need these spaces of catharsis," he said, to "connect to the power of a tool of humanity that is music."
Observer
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Observer
Gustavo Dudamel: the superstar conductor building bridges to pop
As the full moon rose, conductor Gustavo Dudamel's signature theatrics were projected with a front-facing view to a spellbound audience, his baton whipping his orchestra into Richard Wagner's legendary "Ride of The Valkyries." It was perhaps an unlikely spectacle at Coachella, but one that generated a huge, enthusiastic crowd -- and was befitting of a maestro who has become a bona fide celebrity. "WERK!" shouted one young audience member at Dudamel, as he and the Los Angeles Philharmonic began what was seen as one of the festival's most memorable performances. Under Dudamel's direction for the past 17 years, the LA Phil has cultivated an air of cool, fostering a relationship with pop and celebrity especially during the ensemble's summer series at the Hollywood Bowl. So it was only natural that the 44-year-old take his act to California's Coachella, one of the world's highest-profile music festivals that in recent years has gained a reputation for buzzy surprises and eclectic line-ups. The orchestra delivered, launching into a mesmerizing set that included classics like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, film themes like John Williams' "Imperial March" from "Star Wars," and a genre-spanning array of guests including country star Maren Morris, Icelandic jazz-pop singer Laufey, LA's own Becky G and EDM DJ Zedd. The grand finale saw Dudamel's baton conjure bars from one LL Cool J, a genre-blending pas de deux that mirrored a rap battle. "This place represents a culture," Dudamel said of the festival in a backstage interview with AFP, ahead of his and the Phil's first performance, which they will reprise on Saturday during Coachella's final weekend. "This is what I believe is the mission of art, this identity," he explained. "The identity of a new generation, hungry for beauty." Gustavo Dudamel: the superstar conductor building bridges to pop - 'Catharsis' - Over the years, some observers have marveled over -- or criticized -- Dudamel's ties with Hollywood and his efforts to unite the classical world with music of the Hot 100 variety. But for the conductor -- whose talent was shaped by Venezuela's illustrious "El Sistema" musical education program -- working across genre is "the most natural thing," he said. In his youth, "my father had a salsa band, and I grew up listening to that and going to the orchestra, and it was always very natural to just enjoy music -- whatever it was, a bolero, a rock band," Dudamel recalled. "There are different styles of music, but music is one." Johanna Rees, the vice president of presentations at the LA Phil, one of the most prestigious orchestras in the United States, says cross-genre collaborations are in part about drawing in fresh audience members. "It could be considered an entry point," she said, "exposing the orchestra to these younger, newer audiences so they can come back and check out more things and discover orchestral concerts on their own." A lot of audience members at Coachella, she predicted, were "seeing an orchestra for the very first time." "It's quite awesome, in the most literal sense of that word, to see how everybody can come together and make this music completely without the genre." Gustavo Dudamel: the superstar conductor building bridges to pop Some in the classical music world have balked at this notion, considering it a dilution, or cheapening, of the art form. But such criticism misses the expansive possibilities ingrained in the process of collaboration, Rees said: "We're not creating orchestral wallpaper behind a band." "It's hearing the music in a different way. It's not dumbing it down," she added. "It's just making it another version of itself." The prime sunset slot at Coachella serves as a capstone ushering in Dudamel's final year of his nearly two-decade run in Los Angeles -- the product of "years of dreaming, and breaking walls, and connecting more not only with styles of music but with different people's identities," he said. It's an ethos the maestro aims to bring to the eminent New York Philharmonic when he officially assumes his post as that company's next director in the 2026-27 season. And it's vital, he said, in a moment of boiling political turmoil. "We need these spaces of catharsis," he said, to "connect to the power of a tool of humanity that is music." —AFP
