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A CLASSICAL MUSIC SAVIOUR WITH THE GRIN OF A CHIPMUNK

No one who was there will forget it. At the Albert Hall one summer evening in 2007, a teeming ensemble of young South Americans served up a Prom that is now the most YouTubed classical concert this side of the Three Tenors. Under the baton of the compelling Gustavo Dudamel, an all-dancing, all-shouting account of “Mambo” from “West Side Story” has become the roof-raising sign-off of the Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela.

Still a mere 28, with the hair of a poet and the grin of a chipmunk, Dudamel is few critics’ idea of the finished article—in the past year some have called for more musical heft to match his high profile—but he is the closest that a classical industry hungry for self-rejuvenation has to a saviour. If conducting is communicating, nobody of his generation does it better. Closing a recent concert in Baden-Baden with the clapalong “Radetzky March”, he had a stolid audience eating out of his palm.

It would be quicker to list the world-class orchestras he hasn’t worked with. Already boss of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Dudamel this year takes the helm of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This month, he is in Berlin for a hefty joint booking with both the Berlin Philharmonic and the Staatsoper. In April, he is in London with the SBYOV. Don’t even think of seeking a ticket for the Festival Hall concerts, although the week-long residency includes workshops and smaller concerts too.

The product of El Sistema, a pioneering scheme set up in 1975 to rescue children from a broken future, the SBYOV gave Dudamel his chance as a violinist. At 15 he traded bow for baton and by 18 he was the orchestra’s music director. Simon Rattle, a mentor, calls him “the most astonishingly gifted conductor I have ever come across”. They share more than just a bouncing coiffure. Like Rattle, Dudamel takes applause not from the podium but from the floor, shoulder to shoulder with his musicians. He may not yet know where he’s going, but he knows where he came from.

~ JASPER REES

Dudamel/Berlin Philharmonic  Philharmonie, Berlin March 5th-7th.
“Don Giovanni”  Staatsoper Unter Den Linden, March 15th, 20th, 26th, 31st. Dudamel/SBYOV  Festival Hall, London, April 14th, 18th

Picture credit: Frank Di Polo and Nohely Oliveros