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Gustavo Dudamel to conduct inaugural Disney Hall concert
Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel (L) conducts musicians of El Sistema, The Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra (the Venezuelan musical education program), during a rehearsal in Caracas on June 3,2009. Dudamel is actually the Los Angeles Philarmonic's music director as of the 2009-2010 season.
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First came the picnic; the formal sit-down dinner is next. Five days after a free concert for 18,000 people at the Hollywood Bowl, Gustavo Dudamel is set to conduct the orchestra at his inaugural concert as L.A. Philharmonic Music Director at Disney Hall Thursday. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez has more on the orchestral season opener.
Saturday’s concert attracted an audience that looked like all of L.A. Tonight’s Disney Hall concert is a sold-out red carpet gala likely to draw celebrities and wealthy patrons.
Dudamel, a 28-year-old Venezuelan, will conduct two works. The first, "City Noir" by composer John Adams, is a new composition commissioned for this night. It’s a 30-minute symphony inspired by post-World War II Los Angeles, in which bright optimism coexisted with crime, corruption, and other vices.
Dark and light elements also characterize tonight’s second piece. It’s Gustav Mahler’s "First Symphony," a piece finished in 1899, 15 years after the composer first conceived its signature elements. Mahler’s brought Dudamel good luck. The L.A. Phil’s former music director discovered the then-unknown conductor at a Mahler competition in Germany four years ago. Dudamel’s life and career have been in crescendo ever since.
NPR.org and KUSC Radio 91.5 FM will carry tonight’s concert live, beginning at 7:00 P.M.
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