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Gustavo The Great
Bob Simon profiles
for CBS 60 Minutes one of the biggest stars in classical music,
Gustavo Dudamel
Globovision
Gustavo
Dudamel at work
By
Bob Simon
Who's the world's greatest conductor? You could debate that
question
for days. Who's the world's most
precocious conductor? Hands down it's Gustavo Dudamel, a shaggy
haired prodigy from Venezuela, who has become classical music's
newest rock star.
Gustavo started taking music lessons when he was four. When
he was 15, he was named conductor of Venezuela's national youth
orchestra. Ten months ago, at the ripe old age of 26, the Los
Angeles Philharmonic hired him as its next music director.
Gustavo Dudamel is simply the hottest thing to hit classical
music since Leonard Bernstein. But in the world of music, why
talk? Better to look, and listen.
Aside
from the hair, the first thing you might notice about Gustavo
Dudamel is the joy, the exuberance, the passion, the
energy, with which he conducts. The hair bounces, the arms
fly. He is a man possessed, conducting Beethoven, but doing
a ballet. Watching Dudamel conduct is mesmerizing, and audiences
around the world can’t get enough of him. But don’t
think of him as a talented newcomer. Despite his youth, Gustavo
sees himself as a weathered veteran.
" I'm not too young," he tells Simon. "I'm
26."
"You're an old man," Simon
remarks.
"I'm a very old man, Dudamel says, laughing. "No,
you know. I feel you know, I start to conduct orchestras when
I was 12 years old."
But
Dudamel says it's not true when he sees himself described
as a genius,
prodigy, or wunderkind. "I think that I need
to learn a lot, a lot. I think that this is my beginning," he
says.
Gustavo
exploded onto the international stage in 2004, with a lot
less hair but just as much energy. He was one of 16 people
invited to compete for the Mahler Prize, the world's most
prestigious
competition for young conductors. And he won. One of the
judges was the L.A. Philharmonic's conductor, who after seeing
Gustavo,
called Los Angeles to talk to his boss, Deborah Borda.
"And he said, 'Well, actually, I just saw the most amazing
young conductor. He's a 24-year-old Venezuelan kid. He barely
speaks English. And Deborah, he's a real conducting animal,'" Borda
recalls, laughing.
It
was the beginning of a global phenomenon known as "Dudamel-mania." Newspapers
and magazines started covering his every move. A German company
signed a recording contract with him. He was sought after to
conduct orchestras around the world. Even the pope commanded
a performance. But the music world was stunned when the Los
Angeles Philharmonic hired him to be its next music director.
"I think that the atmosphere exists here for him to really
change musical history," Borda says. "Gustavo has
an ability to communicate what is passionate and vital about
music in a very 21st century way."
And there's no place better to showcase those abilities than
Lucerne, Switzerland,
home to the world’s most revered
orchestra festival.
Gustavo was in town with his wife Eloisa to conduct the Vienna
Philharmonic. In between rehearsals, he cloistered himself
in his hotel room studying the score for one of the biggest
performances of his life.
"Is this the first time you're conducting the Vienna
Philharmonic?" Simon asks.
"It's my first time in real version of the orchestra.
I was conducting when I was a kid," Dudamel says.
"In your imagination," Simon
asks.
"In my imagination yes, I remember, when I was six years
old, I was conducting all this concert in my house. But now
it's real," Dudamel explains.
Every conductor knows what he wants from an orchestra and
it's his job to get it. So here was this kid from Venezuela
telling musicians from the venerated Vienna Philharmonic, many
of whom were old enough to be his grandparents, that what he
wanted from them was blood!
"Is good this but the blood is not coming. You know,
you are killing really good, really wild but it’s without
blood. The blood need to be in your face - wham - wham - wham
- now we have blood. A lot!" he told them.
"When you're conducting you look like you're utterly
transported. Can you describe what's going through your mind?" Simon
asks.
"It's depends about how I feel. You know you can make
different pictures of what is happening. But always is different," Dudamel
says.
Gustavo
doesn’t rely only on his hands to let the orchestra
know how he wants them to play. He tells the musicians
what he wants them to feel.
"But this is like, it’s beautiful but, it’s
like you are telling something like 'You know, I love you.
I want to kiss you, hey.' No. It’s something like you
are here very close, and you say: 'I love you!' And she will
be 'Ooh! Yes!' We are telling, we are speaking to her or to
him, whatever, really normal and we need to convince her to
go to the church. And…," he told the musicians.
The performance was a triumph, and it brought even the taciturn
Swiss to their feet.
When it was over, the wunderkind was drained.
"This was a big party , I feel very happy, I have more
energy now," Dudamel tells Simon.
The
party continued in Gustavo’s dressing room with
Daniel Barenboim, the celebrated conductor and piano virtuoso
and one of Gustavo’s most important mentors. Barenboim
had advice for his protégé: "Give it up. Become
a shoemaker, a carpenter, a plumber. But don’t conduct."
Asked
if he was nervous for him, Barenboim tells Simon, "No.
No. He knows what he’s doing. He knows what he wants.
And he knows how to get it. What more can you say? I hope America
doesn’t spoil him."
Spoil him? In a place like Hollywood? Not a chance.
The L.A. Philharmonic's board of directors threw a welcome
party for the Dudamels in a house that could have been a theme
park for the super-rich and super-cool.
"We’re a long way from Barquisimeto. Hum?" Simon
asks.
"Long way, but wonderful way," Dudamel
replies.
Barquisimeto, Venezuela, is 3,500 miles and several worlds
away from Los Angeles.That's where Gustavo was born and raised.
His father played trombone in a salsa band.
Dudamel
says he "absolutely" considered playing
the trombone. "But my arm was too short, you know? It
was very sad because and then I start to study violin. Crazy," he
says.
Gustavo was still studying the violin when 60
Minutes first
met him 8 years ago. But he was beginning to switch to conducting.
He was a little nervous, he admits, but he had a steady hand.
He was in a music program, which is a Venezuelan innovation.
It is called El Sistema, the system, and it takes children
- a quarter of a million children - almost all from poor neighborhoods,
and teaches them how to play instruments.
This has led to hundreds of youth orchestras sprouting up
all over the country.
But El Sistema is less a music program than a profound social
movement that takes kids off the streets, takes them away from
crime and drugs and despair.
"The music saved me. I'm sure of this. With all these
bad things around you, you are exposed to these things, very
close. The music give me a way to be far of these things," Dudamel
says.
Gustavo and Eloisa go back to Venezuela whenever they can
these days.
But
when he’s in his hometown of Barquisimeto, where
does he hang out? With one of the orchestra’s he’s
been conducting for the last decade.
Here was the conducting animal, back in his natural habitat,
the Venezuelan system of youth orchestras.
The
best musicians from the system make up the Simon Bolivar
National
Youth Orchestra. They were preparing for their first
American tour. They’re all under 25 years old.
The first stop on the tour was Disney Hall in Los Angeles.
This stage becomes his when he takes over the L.A. Philharmonic
in 2009. But much of his work, he told us, will be offstage.
"Now we will start a project with the young people from
the poor communities here in LA, like in Venezuela," he
says.
Asked
if he feels like the ambassador of "the system," Dudamel
tells Sumon, "In a good way, yes. I think that it's
not Gustavo Dudamel. It's the Venezuelan system."
Members of the orchestra went into schools throughout the
city to show California kids what the Venezuelan system is
all about. That evening they would show everyone.
"What do you want the people, the audience to see and
hear and feel?" Simon asks.
"The joy to play music," Dudamel says. "We
will show to the people. And the people can see that you
can change the life of people with music."
The music that night was worth waiting for - composed by Leonard
Bernstein -- that other child prodigy Gustavo is often compared
to.
If
you’ve
never heard Gustavo Dudamel make music before, remember in
years to come, you saw him on 60 Minutes first.
- See
and hear the complete story from CBS 60 Minutes
Bob
Simon,
is a CBS correspondent and
the
most honored journalist in international reporting,
has been contributing regularly to CBS 60 Minutes since
1996. Petroleumworld
does not necessarily share these views.
Editor's
notice: This commentary was originally air by CBS News 60
Minutes and published CBS News web site, on
02/17/2007. Petroleumworld reprint
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Petroleumworld News 02/23/08
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