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Dynamic conductor Gustavo Dudamel’s passionate music making invigorates audiences of all ages worldwide. Concurrently serving as Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, the impact of his musical leadership is felt on three continents. While his commitment to his music director posts in the United States, Sweden and Venezuela account for forty-three weeks of his yearly schedule, Dudamel also guest conducts with a few of the world’s greatest orchestras each season. This season he returns to the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic, along with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in Paris and the Israel Philharmonic. He also returns to La Scala, where he regularly conducts, for a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2, which will be recorded by RAI. Entering his third season as Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dudamel’s contract has already been extended through 2018-19, the LA Phil’s centennial season. Under his leadership, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has extended its reach to an unprecedented extent via LA PHIL LIVE, theatercasts of Los Angeles Philharmonic concerts throughout the season which reach audiences throughout North America, and through Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), influenced by Venezuela’s widely successful El Sistema. With YOLA, Gustavo brings music to children in the underserved communities of Los Angeles, and also serves as an inspiration for similar efforts throughout the United States, as well as in Sweden and Scotland. It is not only the breadth of the audience reached, but also the depth of the programming performed under Gustavo Dudamel that is remarkable. Programs at the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2011-2012 represent the best and the boldest: spanning from a newly-commissioned oratorio by John Adams titled The Gospel According to the Other Mary, to the Mahler project – performing his complete symphonic cycle with a combination of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in both Los Angeles and Caracas -to beginning the LA Phil Mozart project this season with Don Giovanni, in a staged realization of the Mozart/da Ponte trilogy over the next three years. In addition to the Mahler project, Gustavo Dudamel leads performances with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in his native Venezuela. These performances, which mark his thirteenth season as Music Director of the Orchestra, include an official concert to celebrate the bicentennial of Venezuela. Along with a South American tour, the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela and Gustavo Dudamel tour Europe this season with appearances at the Salzburg Festival, BBC Proms, La Scala, as well as other venues in Italy, Switzerland and Turkey. Entering his fifth season as music director of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Dudamel conducts the Orchestra in both in Gothenburg and Stockholm, and on tour in Portugal and Spain. A 3–CD box set of live performances, including Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Sibelius’ Symphony No.2 in D, Op.43, and Nielsen’s Symphony No.4, Op.29 and Symphony No.5, Op.50 with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, is being released in Fall 2011 on the Deutsche Grammophon label. An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2005, Gustavo Dudamel has fifteen recordings on the label ranging in repertoire from Stravinksy’s Le sacre du printemps to Beethoven’s Symphonies No. 5 and 7. 2011 releases on iTunes include John Adams’ Slonimsky’s Earbox and Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1, Jeremiah, and Brahms’ Symphony No. 4, all with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His most recent release with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela is titled Tchaikovsky Shakespeare. In the area of video/DVD, six releases capture the excitement of important concerts in Gustavo Dudamel’s musical life, including The Inaugural Concert documenting his first concert in 2009 as Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New Year’s Eve Concert Gala 2011 with the Berlin Philharmonic, and a Birthday Concert for Pope Benedict XVI, among others. A documentary, Let the Children Play, featuring Dudamel, was shown in over 500 Fathom Movie Theaters nationwide in June 2011. Gustavo Dudamel has been featured three times on CBS’s 60 Minutes and recently appeared on a PBS special, Dudamel: Conducting a Life, with Tavis Smiley. He has also taped a program for Sesame Street with Elmo which airs in February 2012. Gustavo Dudamel is one of the most decorated conductors of his generation. In October of 2011, he was named Gramophone Artist of the Year, and in May of the same year, he was inducted into the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in consideration of his "eminent merits in the musical art.” The previous year, he received the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT. Dudamel was inducted into l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres as a Chevalier in Paris in 2009, and received an honorary doctorate from the Universidad Centro-Occidental Lisandro Alvarado in his hometown of Barquisimeto. In 2008, the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra was awarded Spain’s prestigious annual Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts and, along with his mentor José Antonio Abreu, he was given the Q Prize from Harvard University for extraordinary service to children. Although named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2009, Gustavo Dudamel hails from humble beginnings in the small town of Barquisimeto, Venezuela. Born in 1981, as a child he began violin lessons with José Luis Jiménez at the Jacinto Lara Conservatory. He continued his violin studies with José Francisco del Castillo at the Latin American Academy of Violin. His conducting studies began in 1996 with Rodolfo Saglimbeni and, the same year, he was given his first conducting position, Music Director of the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra. In 1999, he was appointed Music Director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra and began conducting studies with the orchestra’s founder, Dr. Abreu; a few years later in 2004, Dudamel was brought to international attention by winning the inaugural Bamberger Symphoniker Gustav Mahler Competition. These early musical and mentoring experiences molded his commitment to music as an engine for social change – a lifelong passion. Gustavo Dudamel, his wife Eloisa Maturén, and their infant son divide their time mainly between Caracas and Los Angeles.
