Venezuelan orchestra brings classical music to Scotland

The Venezuelan classical music programme for disadvantaged and shantytown children known as El Sistema has produced world class conductors like Gustavo Dudamel and the talented young musicians of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra.
Now, Scotland has started its own version of El Sistema based around the Big Noise Orchestra in the deprived estate of Raploch in Stirling.
Ahead of the live outdoor concert in Stirling on 21 June that officially kicked off the London 2012 Olympic Festival, the 200-strong Simón Bolívar Orchestra and its leader Dudamel held a special orchestral masterclass with the Sistema Scotland kids that was captured in this exclusive video by the Guardian Newspaper (sorry about the ad but it's not too long).

Venezuelan conductor "stupendous" on Sesame St

Grammy-winning Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel is now so famous in the USA he was invited to appear on the popular kids' show Sesame Street, alongside series-veteran Elmo, a sheep playing the violin, an octopus playing percussion and an all penguin choir.

His appearance on the show was "very, very great and amazing", but what else could you expect from a classical music conductor who gets rock star treatment wherever he goes and whose fans call him the "Dude".

Dudamel is so popular in Los Angeles, where he leads the LA Philharmonic, that there's even a hot dog named after him.

The 31-year-old conductor cemented his position as one of the hottest talents in classical music on 12 February when he won his first Grammy Award for the recording of Brahms Symphony No. 4 he did with the LA Philharmonic for the Deutsche Grammophon label.

The mop-haired super-conductor currently criss-crosses the globe, juggling a string of high-profile commitments as the principal conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony in Sweden, the musical director of the LA Philharmonic, and the artistic director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar in Venezuela.

Gustavo Dudamel and OSB join Calle 13 at Latin Grammys

Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra joined Puerto Rican rappers Calle 13 on stage to open the show at the Latin Grammy's on 10 November with a rousing rendition of Calle 13's "Latinoamerica".

Dudamel wore a sash in the red, yellow and blue colours of the Venezuelan flag during the performance at the Mandalay Bay Hotel theater in Las Vegas.

Dudamel and Los Amigos Invisibles blow away LA

Venezuelan musical history was made on Friday, 12 August, when funky-Latin-party popsters Los Amigos Invisibles took to the stage with mop-top conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philarmonic to play five classics from their back catalogue at a packed Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

It was a meeting of two of Venezuela's most accomplished and successful exports: Los Amigos Invisibles, who have created their own distinctive brand of dance-friendly tropical funk, and Dudamel, the hottest property in classical music, who is currently director of the Gothenburg Symphony and the LA Philarmonic, two of the finest orchestras in the world.

The concert included some of the band's best-loved hits, such as En Cuatro, La Vecina and Amor.

Los Amigos Invisibles are currently on a 20th anniversary tour of the USA, Europe and Latin America and will next play at Mexico City's Teatro Metropolitan on 19 August.

As soon as I have a better video I'll post it.

Dudamel and SBSO play Mahler at 2011 Proms

Such is the fame of the Venezuelan classical music conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra that when tickets went on sale in May for their 5 August appearance at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall they sold out in three hours.
After setting the Proms alight four years ago with an impassioned performance of Venezuela's unofficial anthem Alma Llanera the orchestra showed a subtler side to their talents this time by taking on Mahler's Second Symphony, "Resurrection".
But the audience reaction to the orchestra's Mahler was equally ecstatic with a 15-minute standing ovation for the Venezuelan musicians.
"The capacity crowd, I should say, cheered and cheered and didn’t want the Venezuelans to leave.  Who knows, maybe they’re still there, dancing the mambo; I had to retreat to write this review," noted Geoff Brown of the Arts Desk, an online reviews website. 
Peter Reed of the Classical Music website was equally rapturous in his review: "With an orchestra of 170 (plus the 12-strong off-stage band), the quality of the playing – its freshness, maturity, clarity, attack and responsiveness – was thrilling, with any number of solos to make you go weak at the knees in admiration for the way these musicians were so inside Mahler’s soundworld, with playing so soft as to become almost a figment of aural imagination, and with the sell-out audience so quiet that a pin, let alone a mobile phone chirrup (save in the second movement), would have sounded like an explosion."
Writing in the Guardian newspaper, music critic Guy Dammann highlighted Dudamel's continuing influence on the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra and the special relationship between the two:
"At the centre of this whirlwind, of course, was Dudamel, whose talents grew with this orchestra, were honed by the Gothenburg Symphony, and are being tested by the LA Phil. But his relationship with the Bolivars is special. Conducting from memory and less concerned with pushing boundaries in interpretation than with simply getting the best out of his players, he inhabits both score and orchestra, offering a seamless conduit between the two."

Gustavo Dudamel gets a hot dog named after him!

You know you've made it in Los Angeles when you get a hot dog named after you. Just ask Venezuelan conducter Gustavo Dudamel, the hottest property in classical music at the moment at just 29 years old.

Dudamel, who comes from Barquisimeto, currently spends his time between Sweden, where he is the principal conductor of the Gothenberg Symphony Orchestra, and the United States, where he's the musical director of the Los Angeles Philarmonic.

The mop-top conductor has made such a big splash in LA that Pink's, the most famous hot-dog joint in town, has invited him onto its Super Specials menu.

The "L.A. Philarmonic Conductor Gustavo Dudamel Dog" is a mouthful even before you tuck into this "stretch hot dog" covered with guacamole, American and Swiss cheese, fajitas mix, topped with jalapeno slices and tortilla chips.

Family-run hot dog haven Pink's has been feeding Hollywood stars and A-listers since Paul Betty Pink first opened a fast-food stand on the corner of La Brea and Melrose in 1939.

Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Snoop Dog, Jay Leno, the Hoff, there are few LA stars who have not popped in to this world famous landmark for a treat, but few are ever offered the chance to appear on the menu.

Dudamel joins a very select group of the hot-dog-honoured elite that includes Martha Stewart, Rosie O'Donnel and Ozzy Osbourne.

But why go for typical Tex-Mex ingredients, when the folks at Pink's could have made the maestro's dog more Venezuelan?

Where's the salsa rosada, for example, the mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise that you only seem to find in Venezuela?

My last hot dog from a street stall in Caracas was a true work of art, a symphony of crushed potato chips and chopped up cabbage and onions slathered in about six different sauces.

How Music Saved Venezuela's Kids - Documentary

Alan Yentob's documentary "How Music Saved Venezuela's Children" in the BBC's Imagine series focuses on the extraordinary Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, the exceptionally talented conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the classical music programme for poor and shantytown children known as "El Sistema" that has made such an impact on all their lives.

Video: Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra performing Mambo at the Albert Hall in 2007

Video: Gustavo Dudamel interviewed at the Proms in 2007

CD review: "Fiesta" Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela

To download tracks from the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra's latest album "Fiesta" click here:

CD Review: Fiesta - Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra

"Fiesta" (Deutsche Grammophon) is one of those rare CDs that is so good you play it till it wears out - a classical music feast of Latin American compositions that ends with a rip-roaring rendition of Leonard Bernstein's "Mambo" from the musical "West Side Story".

The 190-strong Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela (SBYOV), led by the charismatic conductor Gustavo Dudamel, has electrified the usually staid world of classical music in the last few years, with sold out performances in all the major concert halls of Europe.

An appearance at the 2007 Proms at the Albert Hall in London, when the band came on dressed in Venezuela's national colours of blue, yellow, red and white ended with a 10 minute standing ovation.

The concert was a revelation for classical music fans in the UK and a huge boost for Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, who recorded "Fiesta" as a way of capturing the experience of listening to the orchestra live and give their fans who couldn't get tickets a taste of what it was like to be at the Albert Hall concert.

Fiesta is exactly the right word to describe the eight upbeat works which appear on the album, which all celebrate the vibrant energy of Latin America, the vast geography of the region, the legacy of conquest and some of the many dance rhythms that bring people across the divided continents together.

The best-known track on the CD is undoubtedly "Mambo", US composer Leonard Bernstein's evocation of the Puerto Rican migrant experience in the tenements of mid-1950s Harlem. Classical music fans will also have heard works by Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera and Mexico's Silvestre Revuelatas.

But the revelation for most listeners will be the works by the Venezuelans Inocente Carreno, Antonio Estevez, Aldemaro Romero and Evencio Castellanos.

Many of these compositions evoke the folk music of Venezuela's vast seasonally flooded plains, known as Los Llanos, where barefoot cowboys herd cattle past small lakes filled with caymans and piranas, and where white ibis share the water holes with capybaras.

Romero's "Fuga con Pajarillo", for example, interweaves a classical fugue with the galloping rhythms of the "pajarillo" folk dance, while Estevez's "Melodia en el Llano" is slower and more nostalgic.

Dudamel has said of the piece: "It's very impressionistic, influenced by Debussy, slow, with beautiful melodies inside different colours."

The CD comes out at a good time for the SBYOV, who have just begun their five-day residency at the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre in London. The excitement around the orchestra is close to fever pitch and tickets for all the concerts sold out immediately, even for the rehearsals and the shows by the brass section.

The first reviews of the Royal Festival Hall shows have been gushing:

"Never was an invading army more welcome," said Michael Church, writing in the Independent newspaper.

"Is this the best orchestra in the world? No. But the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra is classical music's hottest ticket, and with good reason," said Erica Jeal who gave the concert five stars in The Guardian.

"... there is a symbiosis here between conductor and ensemble that is quite electric," she concluded.

The youth orchestra's ability to affect social change in extremely deprived areas has not gone unnoticed either.

Gustavo Dudamel, speaking to the BBC, said the aims of the youth orchestra went beyond making magnificent music: "When you have around your life, drugs, crime, the best that you can give to a kid is an instrument. Then they can change their lives."

That philosophy looks set to spread. Projects in both developed and developing nations are currently underway to set up similar youth orchestras based on the incredibly succesful El Sistema model created by Venezuelan economist and philanthropist Jose Antonio Abreu in the 1970s.

Abreu realized that putting classical instruments into the hands of young children from the poorest shantytowns and teaching them to work together in a large orchestra gave them a sense of worth and the opportunity to change their lives.

Listen to "Fiesta" and you can hear that hope for a better future come alive.

Track Listing
Sensemaya (Silvestre Revueltas, Mexico)
Margariteña (Inocente Carreno, Venezuela)
Mediodia en el Llano (Antonio Estevez, Venezuela)
Danzon No. 2 (Arturo Marquez, Mexico)
Fuga con Pajarillo (Aldemaro Romero, Venezuela)
Estancia Suite (Alberto Ginastera, Argentina)
1. Los Trabajadores Agricolas
2. Danza del Trigo
3. Los Peones de Hacienda
4. Danza Final (Malambo)
Santa Cruz de Pacairigua (Evencio Castellanos, Venezuela)
Mambo Symphonic Dance from "West Side Story" (Leonard Bernstein, USA)

Video: Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra performing Mambo at the Albert Hall in 2007

Video: Gustavo Dudamel interviewed at the Proms in 2007

To download tracks from the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra's latest album "Fiesta" click here:

Dudamel back at the Proms

Mop-top Venezuelan super-conductor Gustavo Dudamel will be bringing some of his musical magic to the BBC Proms again this year, although sadly not with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, which set the place alight in 2007, leaving to standing ovations and gushing press reviews.

This year, Dudamel will be fronting Sweden's Gothenberg Symphony Orchestra.

His three-date tour of the UK includes the Edinburgh Festival on 12 August, the BBC Proms at the Albert Hall on 13 August and the Snape Maltings Concert Hall on 14 August.

Only 27 years old, Dudamel is flying high. Taking up the violin at the age of ten, he's a product of "El Sistema", the National Network of Youth and Children Orchestras that was set up in the 1970s by Venezuelan economist, music lover and teacher Jose Antonio Abreu.

Showing early promise at conducting, by the age of 18 Dudamel was the musical director of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, the jewel in El Sistema's crown.

Following critically-acclaimed guest appearances with several international orchestras, last year he was named the principal conductor of Sweden's Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

Not bad for a boy from Barquisimeto, in Lara State.

In July this year, his fans were rewarded with "Fiesta" (Deutsche Grammophon), an album of South American compositions played by the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra that brims over with the same passion and joy that wowed audiences at the BBC Proms.

Next year, in his biggest step yet, he will take over as the musical director of the Los Angeles Philarmonic Orchestra.

Asked recently by the Telegraph's Geoffrey Norris how he would cope with running three major orchestras at the same time, Dudamel said: "People say that having three orchestras is a crazy life, but its better because you have three families."

Despite his growing fame in the classical music world, he also said he was determined to maintain his connections with Venezuela:

"Venezuela is very important, not just because it's a place I go to conduct but because my family is there - my wife and my parents and my musical family. I love working not only with the Bolivars but also with the other children's orchestras, something that Maestro Abreu put in our blood."

The video shows the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra at the BBC Proms playing Alma LLanera, Venezuela's second national anthem, a song composed by Pedro Elias Gutierrez that was first performed in Caracas in 1914.

Video: Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra performing Mambo at the Albert Hall in 2007

Video: Gustavo Dudamel interviewed at the Proms in 2007

CD review: "Fiesta" Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela

To download tracks from the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra's latest album "Fiesta" click here:

Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra founder wins prize

By Russell Maddicks

Venezuelan pianist, organist, composer and musical conductor Jose Antonio Abreu has won Canada's prestigious Glenn Gould Prize.

The prize, which honours the memory of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, is awarded every three years to someone who has made an exceptional contribution to the arts and entertainment.

The winner receives a cheque for $50,000 and gets to select a young musician to receive a $10,000 "protege prize". The announcement was made on 14 February.

Abreu pioneered the musical teaching system in Venezuela known as "El Sistema", which offers free music lessons and instruments to poor children.

The scheme began in 1975, with the belief that music could act as a force for social cohesion in a country with such a wide gap between rich and poor.

Abreu gradually extended it to create Venezuela's Youth And Children's Orchestra Network and there are now more than 200 youth orchestras in Venezuela, including the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, which he founded.

Gustavo Dudamel, one of the most talented young conductors in the world today and himself a product of the sistema, discussed Maestro Abreu's continuing importance in an interview with the BBC after the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra's show stopping performance at the Proms in 2007.

Dudamel is currently working with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, one of America's top orchestras.

Video: Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra performing at the Albert Hall in 2007

CD review: "Fiesta" Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela

To download tracks from the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra's latest album "Fiesta" click here:

Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra - Albert Hall 2007

Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra had the usually sedate audience at the Royal Albert Hall in London stomping their feet for more when they played the Proms on 19 August.

The programme included works by Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein and some Latin American classics.

For the climactic finale the orchestra added a bright splash of colour by changing into their Venezuelan-flag jackets and gave London a true taste of the mambo.

Unbelievable. The press reaction after the concert was ecstatic. Wish I’d been there.... I had to settle for BBC4.

Video: Gustavo Dudamel interviewed at the Proms in 2007

CD review: "Fiesta" Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela

To download tracks from the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra's latest album "Fiesta" click here: