Gustavo Dudamel

Still in his mid-twenties, conductor Gustavo Dudamel is fast becoming a major force on the international conducting scene. Having triumphed in the inaugural Bamberger Symphoniker Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition in May 2004, news of his extraordinary podium talent has spread worldwide. From Caracas to Los Angeles to Milan, he is receiving praise from orchestras and audiences alike.

In the 2007–08 season, Mr. Dudamel becomes Principal Conductor of the Göteborgs Symfoniker (Sweden). He also makes his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic, Berliner Philharmoniker, and New York Philharmonic, among others. His reengagements this season are with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Filarmonica della Scala, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra.

Since 1999, Gustavo Dudamel has been Music Director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. In addition, he recently became Music Director of the Youth Orchestra of the Andean Countries (La Orquesta Sinfonica de Juventudes de los Paises Andinos—C. A. F.). In his position as Music Director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, he conducts some 60 performances per season. The youth orchestra system in Venezuela encompasses a music and social program for over 250,000 young Venezuelans and is widely praised for its social contributions to Latin American young people. In 2006, the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra toured Italy and Spain and opened a new concert venue, the “Center for Social Action through Music,” in Caracas, dedicated to the growing needs of well over 90 orchestras in the country.

Born in 1981 in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, Mr. Dudamel studied violin at the Jacinto Lara Conservatory with José Luis Jiménez and later with José Francisco del Castillo at the Latin American Academy of Violin. In 1996, he began his conducting studies with Rodolfo Saglimbeni and during that same year was named Music Director of the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra. In 1999, along with assuming the Music Director position of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, he began conducting studies with José Antonio Abreu, the Orchestra’s founder. Dudamel regularly collaborates with Sir Simon Rattle, Claudio Abbado, and Daniel Barenboim.

Mr. Dudamel is an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, and his debut recording of Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7 with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra was released worldwide in September 2006. His next recording will be of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, to be released in 2007.